The Contractors
Nina
The Blue Contractor
- Arm Cannon: Specializes in buster-type weapons.
- Blue Is Heroic: Her default outfit is blue.
- Expy: She's essentially a female Mega Man X.
- Jack of All Stats: Compared to Ace, Hawk and Draco, Nina's damage output is modest, but often the superior range of her primary weapons to allow her deal with enemies from a safe distance without using any energy. She lacks specialization, but can generally succeed anywhere.
- Long-Range Fighter: Most of her primary weapons focus on blasting enemies from afar.
- Meaningful Name: Not the whole name itself, but the first letter of her name, N, is often used as a variable in mathematics, much like the letter X.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: She's the blue in more than just colour scheme: a safer, long-range playstyle, and the name she puts on the door is printed, in contrast with Ace's scrawl.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Can pass off as a human pretty easily, between having visible skin on her arms, the ability to remove her helmet, and having a very convincing human hair.
- Skill Gate Characters: Nina is an odd case of this trope. Her damage potential is the lowest compared to Ace, Hawk and Draco, but the fact she can fight off enemies from far away and without worrying about running out of energy means she is less likely to get damaged by some nasty combination of enemies the level may randomly generate - which means higher scores on daily/weekly challenges - at cost of killing bosses a bit slower. While Nina is usually not at the top of leaderboards she's far from the bottom too.
- Short-Range Shotgun: The Scattershot. It deals massive damage up close, but has the worst range of all Nina's weapons.
- Spread Shot: Forkalator fires in in a 3-way pattern (front and diagonally, upwards and downward) and can hit bosses multiple times if Nina is close enough.
- Multi-Directional Barrage: Star Beam fires in in a + pattern.
Ace
The Crimson Ace
- Ambiguously Human: As a result of Nina's human-like appearance, Ace looks more robotic by comparison. While lore dictates both of them are still robots, Ace's LED display eyes and seeming inability to remove his helmet makes him look more mechanical.
- Chainsaw Good: What the Plasma Blender is basically. Its range starts pitifully short, but grows along with its attack power whenever it hits an enemy. Whatever gets caught in the flurry of attacks usually won't live long enough to cause trouble to Ace.
- Close-Range Combatant: All of Ace's primary weapons have heavy focus on getting up close and personal with hostiles.
- Composite Character: His moveset and place as secondary Player Character come from Zero. His design merges signature elements of Protoman's look with Zero's armor design.
- Difficult, but Awesome: Ace doesn't have the luxury of being able to fight too well from a long distance like Nina (unless you get really lucky with augments and core augments), but he can tear apart most enemies, even bosses, much quicker if you learn how to use his attacks.
- Fish Eyes: Malfunctioning Ace models tend to have very vacant-looking stares.
- Laser Blade: A-Saber, Ace's basic weapon.
- Red Is Heroic: His default outfit is red.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red oni, with his aggressive, in-your-face playstyle. His door in the hub has his name as a crude scrawl and a hand-carved tally of bosses.
Hawk
The Power Specialist
- Ambiguously Brown: She has a darker complexion than Nina and Ace and looks Asian.
- Difficult, but Awesome: She starts out with a weak melee weapon and an equally weak but long-range sub-weapon, and her powers stat starts out at abysmal -5. Once you gain a few of the more useful boss weapons, however, you can use them practically at will, provided you restore your energy with her Siphon. It gets even better if you manage to get some of her exclusive sub weapons, which are quite powerful.
- Double Jump: Blastjump, one of her exclusive powers, allows her to do it without leg core augs.
- Emergency Weapon: The Protorifle is Hawk's initial special weapon; "Fires inefficiently, slowly, and badly" - that's not us, that's the game itself describing the thing.
- Fire-Breathing Weapon: World Igniter, one of Hawk's exclusive special weapons. It has an absurd firepower (no pun intended) but is equally ammo consuming.
- Homing Projectile: Seeking Striker will trigger if deployed near hostiles and home on them.
- Magikarp Power: Starts off with a pretty weak melee an awkward long ranged blaster that uses energy, but survive long enough to get new special weapons from bosses, or chests, and some power and energy enhancing augments and she will become quite a capable fighter.
- Her own Protorifle also qualifies. If the player can patch up her power damage stat high enough, the Protorifle's damage per shot can match or even surpass the Siphon, effectively giving her a very useful machine gun that the Siphon can restore the energy for on the fly. Combine this with the Owlhawk helmet to cut down on energy usage, and if you get the entire Owlhawk set, Protorifle becomes a powerful rapid-fire shotgun to utterly mow through enemies.
- Master of None: Hawk's usual fate. At the time of Draco's release, Hawk had not been at the top of the weekly leaderboard for months. While interesting, her reliance on powers just shows that strong primary attacks are just plain better than strong power attacks. Her melee will not do nearly as much damage as Ace and she will have to deal with the energy consumption for long range attacks, something Nina mostly doesn't have to deal with. Hawk can become powerful, but not without a lot more luck than the others need.
- Meaningful Name: In-Universe; her skillset perfectly synergizes with the Owlhawk armor set.
- Mechanically Unusual Class: She plays quite differently from the other two contractors. She has a rather weak melee weapon as her primary attack, but it can drain energy from enemies to fuel powers, giving her much more of a focus on boss weapons than Nina or Ace. Additionally, instead of alternate primary weapons, she has access to secondary weapons exclusive to her, which can be found in diamond chests.
- Purple Is Powerful: Her default outfit is purple.
- Weapon Specialization: Her primary weapon is a whip called the Siphon. It has a short range and doesn't combo as well as Ace's melee weapons, nor does it do as much damage. As a trade-off, however, charged attacks with the weapon and the second hit of a combo will drain energy from an enemy, allowing her to refill her energy meter very easily.
Draco
The Endless Arsenal
- The Big Guy: Aesthetically speaking as while Draco's sprite shows him to be biggest Contractor, his hitbox is the same size of Nina, Ace and Hawk.
- Dash Attack: Vega allows Draco to perform a dash attack which makes him invulnerable for the duration.
- Difficult, but Awesome: Draco can hold only one power, but has a lot of weapons and other options. Making effective use of them takes some getting used to and practice, but once you do, he can be nigh-unstoppable.
- Energy Bow: He can find Gemini, a bow that fires two bolts of energy and is one of his best ranged weapons. This is possibly the most powerful weapon in the game - it has incredible range and rate of fire, respectable damage, and to push things over the top it can also auto-aim roughly at nearby enemies.
- Lightning Bruiser: Despite his bulky appearance Draco can be extremely mobile as most of his exclusive weapons charge attack gives him an extra jump/dash or make a platform so he can make a shortcut. He even starts with a weapon (his hammer) which gives him a double jump, making him the only character to always have access to one.
- Meaningful Name: In-universe; his skillset perfectly synergizes with the Dracopent armor set.
- Mechanically Unusual Class: Draco unique mechanic is that he has access to auto-charges, his default maximum is 2 up to 5 depending on which armor parts you find and he can blast consecutive charge attacks.
- Precision-Guided Boomerang: Volt Edge, another of Draco's starting weapons, is a boomerang.
Main Bosses
Shatterbeak
- Achilles' Heel: A Quint Laser in the right place will make him very unhappy. Multi-shot weapons like the Forkalator and Star Beam also give him a hard time, allowing the player to hit him without exposing themselves to his dash attacks.
- An Ice Person: Converts the frigid cold of the arctic into energy that is uses to attack, sending out exploding shots of ice called Splinterfrost.
- Boss Subtitles: Icy Avenger.
- Dash Attack: Like its Peng brethren, Shatterbeak dashes between corners. Later levels make it fire icicles when dashing.
- Friend or Foe?: It is incapable of discerning if any organic intruder is supposed to be there or not, and therefore is advised to only to be put in facilities with no organic employees.
- Homage: An ice penguin with an exploding ice blast, it is clearly a direct reference to Chill Penguin from Mega Man X.
- King Mook: For the Peng enemies.
- Spread Shot: Of two varieties; it can either fire an initial exploding barrage of ice all around it, or fire single to triple shots that will burst into more parts after hitting the wall.
- Turns Red: Does this regardless of level, using more dashes before firing one of its attacks and using a special attack at level 2 and above.
Vile Visage
- Achilles' Heel: Mortar attacks deal bonus damage. Destroying his horn also denies him his defence. Additionally, other attacks that pierce shields, such as from players with the Quantum Spook, ignore the shield, so if you have one of these and leave the last Flapp in a summon wave floating around, you can wail on the Visage for a while with minimal concern (since Flapps in this fight mostly stay on the same level).
- Boss Subtitles: Pillar of Nightmares.
- Evil Laugh: Cracks one whenever the player reaches him.
- Eye Scream: Can pop its eyes out of its face to attack. In the beta, its projectiles were also eyes.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: Pay close attention to Visage's movements and you can catch a glimpse of an eye inside its mouth.
- Flunky Boss: Spawns minions to attack Contractors while it puts its own shield up. Said minions apparently detest the Vile Visage, and will immediately desert the battlefield when it dies.
- King Mook: It's a gargantuan Maintcore.
- Nightmare Face: With a moniker and title like that you shouldn't expect something easy on the eyes.
- The Scrappy: In-universe, to the point where nobody bothered to fix its weakness to mortars.
- Shielded Core Boss: If Visage has active minions out, it will be protected by an energy shield. Unless you break its horn.
- Slasher Smile: Has a perpetual, toothy, one.
Twin Astrals
- Achilles' Heel: Suffer additional damage from the Splinterfrost, which also temporarily freezes the sun Twin. Additionally anything that can erase or block bullets like Armatort's core arms, Force Nova and including their own Flameshield, can make the fight easier to deal with.
- Boss Subtitles: Forged in Flames.
- Bullet Hell: There's a reason they're nicknamed "The Touhou Project Twins".
- Collapsing Ceiling Boss: An extremely rare inversion. You can drop the falling platforms on them to deal damage. Defeating both with this when they are Level 8 boss nets you an achievement even.
- Dual Boss: Naturally. When summoning their Flameshields, the Astrals will create a damaging energy beam between them, and when at a high enough level one of them Turns Red if the other dies in addition to reviving if not killed fast enough.
- Hive Mind: They were originally intended to be this, by giving one soul to two different bodies, but splitting the soul up like that simply created mindless beasts instead.
- King Mook: For the Grome enemies.
- Playing with Fire: Not only do they have fire shields, but they launch fireballs too.
- Reviving Enemy: On level 8, if one Astral is defeated before the other, they will come back with health equal to the other if the other isn't dealt with in 10 seconds.
Death Lotus
- Achilles' Heel: Takes massive damage from the Boomerang Blade. Is also vulnerable to the Star Beam; DL's big advantage, his unpredictable positioning, is largely negated when Nina can hit him just by running around the ground floor or climbing the wall on the other side of the arena. Shadespur, while it doesn't inflict extra damage, will solidify the holographic platforms which can be used as cover from his mortars and give steady ground for melee attackers to wail on Lotus with more freedom.
- Boss Subtitles: Prince of Petals.
- Evil Laugh: He will let one out before the fight against him starts.
- Flunky Boss: Spawns mini-Lotuses that fire mortars when it retreats.
- "Get Back Here!" Boss: Death Lotus pops out of holes in the wall and retreats into the wall fairly frequently.
- King Mook: One for the Lotus enemies.
- Macross Missile Massacre: On later levels, Lotus tends to shoot a lot of Mortar shells, between the main body and the Lotus Spawn that it creates.
Perforator Alpha
- Achilles' Heel: Quite apart from its special weapon weakness, the Shadespur, Perforator Alpha also has serious trouble with the Armatort's Pound core augment, which allows charged shots to cut through enemy attacks. Force Nova can also be used to eliminate the need to follow his rotating barrage, allowing melee characters to chop through him with ease. Hawk's Seeking Striker power can also make Perforator very sad, since it allows rapid-fire damage from any angle.
- Boss Subtitles: Discordant Riddler. Or Mother of Bullets. Or Queen of the Angles.
- Bullet Hell: Shoots quite a lot during its boss fight. Granted, the patterns are a little more tame than they are in, say, Twin Astrals, but Perforator still shoots a large volume of bullets.
- King Mook: One for the Blaster enemies.
- Samus Is a Girl: She has a fairly masculine laugh and no Tertiary Sexual Characteristics, so it's easy not to realise. If you fight her at Level 8, Perforator Alpha gets a special title card calling her the Mother of Bullets and Queen of Angles.
- Screaming Warrior: Every time she stops to unleash a hail of bullets, in fact.
Rollster Beta
- Achilles' Heel: Doesn't like the Flameshield, which blocks his Boomerang Blades and inflicts a lot of damage when it hits him. Also, most of Rollster's attacks hit the same level he's on, apart from the Last Ditch Move where he bounces around; this leaves him vulnerable to Nina's Star Beam and Forkulator, which allow Nina to engage from other levels of the battlefield. Finally, during the bouncing point, his rapid movement means he has a decent chance to bump into a Quint Laser shot.
- Asteroids Monster: Divides into two when its life bar is depleted. It'll also divide a second time on Level 8.
- Boss Subtitles: Roll Free or Die.
- Dash Attack: Will occasionally wind up one and charge forward.
- Hamster-Wheel Power: According to lore, the Rollster units were intended to be a source of energy for the Corp.
- Last Ditch Move: Him and his sub-Rollsters will bounce across the room wildly at half health.
- King Mook: A giant Rolly.
- Monowheel Mayhem: Unlike the smaller Rollies you may encounter, Rollster doesn't run inside his wheel, but sits back comfortably as if it was a vehicle.
Eternal Star
- Achilles' Heel: Vulnerable to the Force Nova, which clears out mini-Flapps in a huge chain explosion that deals bonus damage. Also dislikes long-range charged shots, which can cut through a lot of mini-Flapps on the way to Eternal Star's face. Especially useful with Wave Beam, which doesn't dissipate when it hits something it can't kill.
- Bat Out of Hell: Takes a lot of cues from bats, between its design and how its entrance animation has it start off hanging from the ceiling.
- Boss Subtitles: Herald of Hope.
- Close-Range Combatant: Flies slowly towards you while firing short-range Shadespur shots. Because it's quite large compared to Contractors and its arena is full of Bottomless Pits, it can be tricky getting past it when the time comes to relocate.
- Flunky Boss: Spawns an armada of mini-Flapps when its health falls below certain thresholds.
- Glass Cannon: Comparatively speaking. Eternal Star has less health than other bosses, but due to its arena having precarious grounding he is more than capable of doing a number on incautious players.
- King Mook: Serves as one to Flapps.
- Load-Bearing Boss: Lore indicates Eternal Star is what is keeping Skytemple from becoming a Groundtemple, but this is more of an Informed Attribute because nothing happens in-game after it is defeated.
Kur
- Achilles' Heel: Countered by "Vera", which deals bonus damage (albeit for shots with a very low base damage) when it reflects his Quint Lasers. Also dislikes Nina's Forkulator; only his Quint Laser and fire volley attacks can hit the higher platforms, some of which have direct lines of fire with the Forkulator.
- Boss Subtitles: Savage Skylord.
- Break Out the Museum Piece: His lore entry indicates that he's been decommissioned for decades before being re-purposed for testing. This also explains why he's the only boss who isn't a King Mook; everything about him is so archaic, nothing is actually worth re-purposing for mass production.
- Dash Attack: Uses this to move from corners of the room.
- No-Sell: Quint Laser shots aren't affected by the things that deflect smaller shots, like Force Nova pulses or Armatort's Pound.
- Painfully Slow Projectile: Kur's Quint Lasers move slowly, but have a lot of range and ignore most countermeasures.
- Player Nudge: The yellow effective damage numbers from shooting him directly with the Vera have a "?" at the end instead of the usual "!". That combined with the exceedingly low damage it actually does directly suggests there is something more to fighting Kur with the Vera.
- Playing with Fire: Spits fire volleys and ignites the ground.
- Turns Red: At level 2 or above, he'll spawn walls of Quint Laser projectiles when knocked below half health. Most of his attacks also get faster.
Other Characters
Al
- Boss Subtitles: Friendly Training Bot.
- Heel–Face Turn: Al is built as an assistant to Drs. Sharp and Flat, and is used for many situations including Contractor training, selling Augments, and giving post-boss rewards. It doesn't seem like Al agrees with Sharp and Flat's ethics, and saves Nina and Ace by disabling the detonator for their bodies. Saving him in the final escape sequence is entirely optional, however.
- Robot Buddy: Al is pretty friendly, selling augments in the HQ and congratulating Nina and Ace once they beat a boss. He also defuses the contraption that Sharp and Flat use to detonate Nina and Ace.
- Warm-Up Boss: The boss of the tutorial.
- Your Size May Vary: Al in the HQ is pretty small, but as the boss of the tutorial level he's bigger than the player.
Dally
- Mechanical Animals: She's a robotic cat.
- Team Pet: Is a robotic cat, and besides granting augments and bonus crates to Nina and Ace, mostly behaves like a normal cat. In the HQ, a photo on the corkboard shows her curled up on Ace's head, and she'll purr if you pet her.
Dr. Brighton Sharp
Lord of Life for the Corp
- All Your Powers Combined: Uses the abilities of most of the previous bosses in his boss battle.
- Boss Subtitles: Duke of Development.
- Bullet Hell: Once Sharp's health drops below certain thresholds he will summon use a Roller Disk that will bounce around, an Astral Orb to create a damaging link between him and the orb and then Kur's Quint Lasers. Combine all of those things with his normal attacks and the fight becomes very hectic.
- Character Narrator: The datafiles hint that he's the one who wrote them, or at least the one who wrote the entries for bosses and enemies.
- Chronic Pet Killer: You'll find out that he keeps a hamster and a Snomp as pets. They both look very neglected, with the hamster seemingly dead and the Snomp following soon after. It's implied that he shows remorse over his hamster, which is why he added the rebirth feature onto Rolly units.
- Mirror Boss: Has traits of this, as he uses some of the previous bosses' powers in similar ways to Nina and Ace.
- Noble Demon: Despite treating Nina and Ace just as poorly as Flat, its implied through his lore entry that he's actually less evil than his partner, genuinely wanting to create truly sentient artificial life and is only helping Flat's schemes because its the only way he can get funding.
- Powered Armor: Uses a battlesuit when fought.
Dr. Arlan Flat
Rector of Retribution for the Corp
- Always Accurate Attack: When damaged enough, Flat's mech will create a large explosion and escape to the other side of the room. The attack deals knockback and triggers Mercy Invincibility, but deals no damage.
- Boss Subtitles: Chief of Control.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: The first thing he does in his boss battle is throw away his health bar.
- Diegetic Interface: The green ring around the cockpit of the Omega Model serves as his health bar in place of the standard health bar.
- Einstein Hair: Has a pretty kooky-looking haircut.
- Final Boss: Dr. Flat's spider mech.
- Final-Exam Boss: Flat's spider mech fight tests the player's platforming abilities.
- Load-Bearing Boss: The Station's self-destruct function is tied to a dead-man's switch implanted in his heart.
- Mad Scientist: Committed fully to his role in the testing cycle.
- Obviously Evil: Not only is he much more of a Jerkass than Sharp, but he's clearly based off of Dr. Wily. His datalore entry even describes how nefarious he is.
- Spider Tank: Rides around in a giant spider mech for the entirity of his boss battle.
- Turns Red: After being beaten up enough, Dr. Flat starts shooting icicles, fireballs, and mortars at the player to slow them down.
The Board
- Greater-Scope Villain: They are the main source of funding for Sharp and Flat's Project, but little else is known about them.
- MegaCorp: Who they represent.
- Omniscient Council of Vagueness: They never make a corporeal appearance in the game.
- The Unfought: Only alluded to in datalore entries.
