Darth Wiki / Metaspace

"When reality fights against itself, the end of existence will draw near..."

Not to be confused with Meatspace.

Metaspace is a series of games by Ironcommando. The series includes:

• Arc Angle, a Shoot 'Em Up (if you can call it one)
• Grid Warrior, an overhead run and gun
• MESH, a Tower Defence of sorts.
• Diamond Phase, a prequel to the main story.
• 31st Soldier, a Flash Platform Game.

This description is for 31st Soldier, an (not yet existent) Adobe Flash Platform Game that is still in very early development

Storyline:

Metaspace is Another Dimension which governs the very coding of reality itself. The entities in Metaspace, known as "Metas", are extremely powerful Energy Beings, some of which govern the very laws of physics. Metas primarily run on energy drawn from their dimension, termed "Meta-energy". Outside Metaspace, they are normally unable to survive for long unless they can find an energy connection to their universe- this is solved by creating machines that provide a connection.

The multiverse has been unwillingly dragged into a large-scale war. Two factions from Metaspace have started a power struggle over various planets and worlds: the Enforcers and the Defiance. Both of them have different ideals from each other- The Enforcers want a World of Silence, while the Defiance just want to destroy everything. However, a third faction, termed the Resistance, is actively trying to stop both the Enforcers and Defiance from their goals.

You play as I.C. (Identity Crisis), the 31st soldier in the 31st division of the Enforcers, who ironically dislikes the strict order that the Enforcers impose. When cruising through outer space, I.C.'s carrier ship is attacked by Defiance. I.C. uses this chance to escape to the nearby planet, joining the Resistance in the process...

Has a character sheet.

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The series as a whole displays the following tropes:

Gameplay Tropes

• Action Bomb: Suicide Defiance units, which appear in the mission "Lands of Sacrifice".
• Always Accurate Attack: Several of the Meta have abilities that always hit, as the users of said abilities have a very limited form of causality manipulation. These, however, have a noticeable startup time and can be cancelled, and are usually signified via a crosshair appearing on the victim before it hits.
• Another Side, Another Story: 4rx acts as Mission Control with an internet connection but is actually off somewhere kicking Enforcer/Defiance butt. You get an option to play the game from his side once yoou finish I.C.'s
• Antagonist Abilities: Many of the enemy Metas have them. Even the Mooks.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Omni-proof bullets and weapons. These instantly destroy most Deflector Shields/Mana Shields and in the case of drills, chew through any form of armor AND One-Hit Kill the guy wearing it.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Enemies actually have this as a stat, either Yes or No. If it's the former, feel free to mow them down, if it's the latter, get the heck out of there unless your weapons are good enough!
• Damage Reduction: Armored enemies have this. You need to do over a certain amount of damage in one attack in order to actually damage them, otherwise, they will not be harmed (not even Scratch Damage). Because of this, Death of a Thousand Cuts is out of the question against armored foes.
• Damage Typing: Meta have up to three HP bars- shielding, armor (for different parts of their body), and integrity. Different attacks can deal different amounts of damage to shielding, armor and integrity. Shielding regenerates when not being damaged for a while, and if it goes to 0, the Meta will take damage from attacks instead of the shielding. Armor provides Damage Reduction, if it goes to zero for a part, that part cannot reduce damage anymore. Integrity regenerates at a slow but constant rate, if it reaches 0, the Meta is deleted. Certain attacks can bypass shielding and/or armor entirely.
• Degraded Boss: If there is a boss fight early in the game, chances are that it will be fought as a normal enemy later. Thankfully, you will probably have enough firepower to take them down.
• Desperation Attack: Most Officer bosses have one. They also tend to be One Hit Kills if they hit.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: Giant blobs of liquid metal, living gas and animated sand dunes are some of the enemies you face.
• Exclusive Enemy Equipment: Almost all of the Meta weapons are obtained from the data of defeated foes.
  • The Enemy Weapons Are Better: You get many of the cool and devastating weapons from doing so.
• Fake Weakness: Many enemies pull this off. For instance, one of them sports an armored protrusion on its back that has a "face" on it. Attacking it there does no damage at all.
  Damage: "This thing's trying to be funny by having a fake head. Shoot it over here!" *points to real weak spot*
• Giant Enemy Crab: The Defience have Crabburn, a Nigh-Invulnerable Energy Being crab made of Hard Light. It's also larger than a small city!
• Giant Equals Invincible: Partially Justified. Most WEAPONS are made of Omni-Proof armor, and thus must be hit in the weakspots or weaponry to deal any damage.
• Glass Cannon: Many of your foes are like this.
• Improbable Weapon User: Several Worker Units use improvised weapons, such as pickaxes, rivets, jackhammers, pilebunkers, etc to attack.
  • The medal goes to the "Flyswat-R" enemy, who wields a giant laser flyswatter.
• "Instant Death" Radius: Some Mooks have an "aura" that causes continuous damage to you if you get within a range, like a heat aura due to convection/radiation. There's one which is literally this- it fires an extremely high-powered, faster-than-anything energy attack at the first thing that enters.
  • Some of the Black Virus employ a Fate Worse than Death Radius via Mind Rape, such as a fear, insanity or despair radius.
• Intangible Man: One of the I.C.'s abilities. Metas in their pure form (unarmored) are like this too, and are completely immune to physical damage.
• Interesting Situation Duel: Several instances, such as when riding a bomb, scaling a building, freefall, hanging from a helicopter, etc.
• Mini-Boss: Most levels have at least two of them.
• Monster Compendium: Various data and stats are shown for the different enemies you fight (as well as the good guys).
• Mook Debut Cutscene: Several of the more dangerous enemies have a cutscene showing them destroying your forces (or the forces of the opposing faction) with their signature attacks.
• Mooks: This game is heavily Mook-based, as it expects the player to learn and know the different strategies for fighting different mooks.
  • Airborne Mook: Aerial enemies like aircraft and birds appear very frequently. Good thing you do not suffer from Denial of Diagonal Attack.
  • Aquatic Mook: Marines are regular grunts but with underwater capability. There are also various underwater units based off sea creatures or water transport.
  • Elite Mook: The Enforcer Leader's personal army. You know they're elite when they are mooks with story breaker powers!
  • Giant Mook: Heavy Units, Powered Armor, as well as many vehicles.
  • Heavily Armored Mook: Armored Soldiers, which are regular Enforcer/Defiance soldiers IN ARMOR! There are also Vechicle and Heavy units that have strong armor.
  • Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Several variants, such as Teleport Spammers, Nigh-Invulnerable armored units, Phasing units, etc.
  • Mecha-Mooks: If the enemy isn't a Meta, there's a high chance it'll be a machine of some sort.
  • Mook Bouncer: Tele-transport units normally teleport enemies into your ranks, but they can also teleport you into a large bunch of enemies.
  • Mook Lieutenant: "Commander" type units, which are basically stronger-than-average mooks that attack, summon their soldiers to fight you, and also buff all allied units in a radius.
  • Mook Medic: Spanners are able to heal Mecha-Mooks. Anti-Virus units can execute a repair program to help their allies.
  • Mook Mobile: A variant- the vehicles in the game are mostly Sentient Vehicles, so the Mook Mobiles are the mooks themselves!
  • More Dakka: Many weapons have this, but the PERSEC stands out for being able to fire a million shots in one second.
  • Night of the Living Mooks: Black Virus enemies, as well as Metas and robots infected by them.
  • Nocturnal Mooks: BlackTech units cannot function in bright daylight, so they attack the player in dark areas, where their Invisibility Cloak activates.
  • Shield-Bearing Mook: Shielder units will block all attacks from the front. Later vairants have the ability to block attacks from above.
  • Smash Mook: Somewhat averted with many of the melee-based Heavy units. While they do try to smash you for painful damage, they also use many long-distance attacks.
• Percent Damage Attack: Several units have attacks that deal percent damage. Unlike most variations, these do a percent of maximum health instead of current health. Most boss-level units have abilities to mitigate the damage, however.
• Recurring Boss Template: There is going to be at least one boss per game that uses an omnidirectional energy burst, which can only be evaded by periodically finding a shelter behind a structure when they use it.
• Respawn on the Spot: Being a Nintendo Hard game based off Contra, this is pretty much required when you die. Also has an in-universe explanation for it.
• Roar Before Beating: W.E.A.P.O.N.s will let off a loud, hollow-metallic "roar" when they encounter a large group of opponents. Then they unleash fists and firepower on their enemies.
• Rocket Ride / Riding the Bomb: Stage 2, "Fire In The Sky" has you doing this for the entire level.
  • Rocket Riders are Mooks that try to ride a rocket into you.
• Sentient Vehicle: You'll come across many of them as enemies- Roaders, Drives, Microns, Macrons, Flies, Aereons, Kill Sats, etc.
• Sheathe Your Sword: The only way to defeat internet trolls is to ignore them, as their health decreases over time. Hitting them with anything (or healing them) will only heal them instead, as trolls crave attention.
• Spider Tank: One of the enemy units that comes in many sizes. They tend to be of the lightning element and have the ability to jump high and walk on walls and ceiling. One of the protagonists is terrified by them due to their spider-like form.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: Omni-Claws. A pincer-like weapon that can grasp like a pincer, merge together to form a sword for slashing, piercing and drilling, open up further to become a Double Weapon, produce Deflector Shields, and best of all, act as a Wave-Motion Tuning Fork! Being made of Omni-proof, it has no problem cutting any kind of armour.
  • Naturally, only elite units and the Enforcer leader have them.

Storyline Tropes

• Action Girl: Calia Rayfer shows that Authority Equals Asskicking by destoying a huge number of Metas in the name of the Universal Federation.
• Agony Beam: Xilus' and his units have Mana Drain siphons that also cause excruciating pain. The pain part wasn't originally there, but they wanted to watch enemy magic users suffer.
• Anti-Villain: Many of the Enforcers and Defiance are like this. Some are fighting only for the sake of others, others because they are Just Following Orders, etc. These are the ones who are most likely to pull a Heel–Face Turn.
  • In fact, the Disc-One Final Boss is arguably Lawful Good, a being who rules over the galaxy but cares deeply about the needs of his units and the people and helps to maintain peace. He's only an antagonist because he can't refuse an order from the Enforcer Leader to traffic and harvest lifeforms for the Enforcer Leader's army.
• Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: Several Metas prefer to use melee weapons over guns, bombs, and spell-like programs. Granted, said archaic weapons are Enhanced Archaic Weapons.
• Awesome, but Impractical: In-universe, the Meta consider Bullet Hell as this. Why bother spamming Painfully Slow Projectiles when one can use weapons that hit instantly (lasers, targeting attacks) or can't be avoided (shockwaves, "WALL OF DEATH")?
• Big Bad Ensemble: Enforcer Leader and Defiance Leader are the two main Big Bads. And then there's Metaspace itself...
• Canon Welding: With MUGEN Clash Of Universes. The Enforcers gain much-needed info thanks to hacking Caesar's database, and Nexus Corporation joins up with the Enforcers to take revenge against the Gifted for turning Caesar into an Empty Shell.
• Containment Field: Used liberally for lots of weapons and abilities, such as heat based weapons using "heat packets", which are essentially huge amounts of heat shot out in these which prevent the heat from escaping, and disintegrate when hitting enemies, causing the heat to damage them, and it's their primary method of making heat-based projectile attacks work in space.
• CrossOver: With Unchained Lightning, featuring Stormer Aurion as a Guest-Star Party Member (The pregnant Chiharu would be brought to Raysilon and act as Mission Control). The Enforcers have invaded Stormer Aurion's universe, turning the New Orleans Ground Zero site into their own base of operations (which Stormer finds extremely disrespectful). Worse still, they've resurrected and brainwashed Stormer's family who had been killed there, forcing Stormer to kill his own family. Lastly, they implant the scene of Fidel's rather brutal and gory death into everybody's heads, scarring the minds of many- the officer stationed there even thought that Fidel was too much, and wanted to broadcast his death as a "public execution" of sorts. And as a further kick in the face, when the Enforcers there are defeated, they remove the entire presence of New Orleans and leave it a barren wasteland, causing Stormer to swear eternal revenge on them.
• The Chosen One: Averted. There is no chosen one, for the main theme is co-operation and friendship. As such, everyone is the one who can take down the Enforcers and Defiance.
• Dark Is Evil: The Black Virus, which are Always Chaotic Evil Metas that devour, convert, or corrupt sentient beings that they come across.
• Data Crystal: Some Metas take the form of these, and many WEAPONS have one as their "core". Of course, that means Data Crystals are Mooks that can kill you.
• David Versus Goliath/Evil Is Bigger: Many of the bosses you face are WEAPONS. Quite a number of the enemy officers are taller than the height of a room. As for the good guys- they're human sized.
• Endless Corridor: The Enforcer Corridors, a realm which is actually an immigration gateway that the Enforcers use to control the traffic between universes. This is made of corridors that never end until the Enforcers allow you through.
• Enemy Mine: Enforcers and Defiance will team up together (and even with the Resistance) when the Black Virus is around.
• The Extremist Was Right: The Enforcer Leader's last words "I hope you regret your decision when you find out the true nature of your leader" turns out to be true.
• Food Chain of Evil: The Black Virus' favorite foods include evil robots and A.I.s, technologically-advanced evil aliens, and especially other Metas like Enforcers and Defiance.
• Giant Equals Invincible: Justified. Giant WEAPONS are armored with Omni-Proof, which means you need to hit them in the weak points or you deal no damage is dealt.
• Half-Human Hybrids: There are half-human, half-Meta, as a result of an experiment. "Gifted" are half-human, half-Arcane beings.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Happens when you free certain Enforcer-aligned cities from Enforcer reign, especially those governed by the nicer, less oppressive Enforcers. The citizens actually liked being under Enforcer control, and thus tell the Resistance to scram once the Enforcers are dealt with.
• Jobber: There's an officer in the Enforcers who does this. His unit is the first one sent in to attack opposing forces, and both he and his unit are easily trashed. Subverted- he loses on purpose, as his unit's main job is to see how opponent fights and find out which Enforcers will beat their fighting style.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: The Resistance can use this on entire planets. Only used as a Godzilla Threshold, however.
• Let's You and Him Fight:
  • Calia mistakes the Resistance to be Enforcer Metas and attacks them in a boss fight.
  • The Enforcers goad Calia and Amber into a blind rage against their friends Stormer and Chiharu by exposing the secret history information the latter secretly copied by Chiharu Nexus Corporation to Stormer and Chiharu's world, giving Calia and Amber massive negative PR. It gets bad to the point where Calia and Amber attack innocents to "silence" them and even perform an unwarranted Mind Rape just to make Chiharu "regret her actions". Thankfully, the citizens all get a Mind Wipe of the incident and the blame is pinned on the Enforcers, but the innocent lives that were taken couldn't be restored.
• The Magic Versus Technology War: Enforcers and Defiance vs Superpowered Beings and Arcanes. You join forces with the latter.
  • On a side note, magic completely trumps normal technology. It is roughly on equal footing with Meta Technology.
  • Thirdly, both Arcane beings and Metas take extra damage from each others' attacks.
• Mile-Long Ship: Ray.
• Nicknaming the Enemy: Several instances. Metas are called "Cybers", "Progs", "Technos", and other names by many alien races.
• Nothing Can Stop Us Now!: Played with.
  Fortress, Bastion of the Defiance: "Hahahaha! You can't hurt me at all! I'm INVINCIBLE!!!"
  I.C.: "You do know that every time a villain says 'I'm Invincible!!!' is usually the last time they are?"
• Not What I Signed on For: Many people who sign up for the Enforcer army soon realize that they are going to be changed forever. Those who somehow retain their conscience will shout this out.
• Order Versus Chaos: The Enforcers versus The Defiance. Both of them are bad- you play as the neutral third faction.
• Outside-Context Problem: All the Metas that invade the multiverse, especially the Enforcers and Black Virus.
• Planet Spaceship: The Defiance Mothership.
• Plot Tailored to the Party: Inverted. The Enforcers and Defiance send out units that put their foes in the worst possible situation. (e.g. Magic/Psychic/Ki users are pitted against Valiants, which nullify any supernatural activity in a large radius).
• The Power of Friendship: This allows the main characters to defeat the Enforcer and Defiance leaders, both of whom have massive armies, but no true friends to back them up.
  • In the final battle, some of the Resistance (Steel, Glitch, Calia) have to face the ludicrously powerful Metaspace forces (Raysilon, 4rx, #31, Zyraz). They win because the latter are reluctant to attack their friends and are holding back.
• Prison Ship: The Defiance broke into and took over many of these around the multiverse, so as to find evil-minded criminals to convert into Terror Division units.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits/Dysfunction Junction: The Resistance forces have many personality flaws, and due to this, are constantly getting on each others' nerves. Through friendship, co-operation and character development, they become a unified force capable of destroying Enforcer and Defiance armies.
• Saving The Multiverse: The Enforcers and Defiance have brought their Forever War into the multiverse, and it's up to another faction of Metas to help and teach everyone how to destroy them.
• Sentient Cosmic Force: Metaspace is revealed to produce this and distribute it through multiverses. Said cosmic force holds the laws of physics together. Metas are made of it and can manipulate it to warp physics.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Happens quite a few times between I.C. and Calia. Especially when paired up with each other for missions.
• Sniping the Cockpit: A very cruel tactic employed by the Enforcers and Defiance against Humongous Mecha. They send units that phase through the mecha and rip up the pilot from inside.
• Those Were Only Their Scouts: An Enforcer strategy. When initiating war with another force, they first send in their weakest armies (which are actually quite powerful). These guys aren't supposed to win, but to scout the enemy's weaponry, powers and strategies. The next fight, they send in specialized troops which just so happen to counter the opponent's strategy.
• Unwitting Pawn: The entire freaking multiverse, who sided with the Resistance. By defeating the Enforcers and Defiance, they allowed the Resistance to continue the merging of universes and the resetting of reality unhindered. No one knew about this until the Enforcer leader is defeated, as the plan was so well kept.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Both the Enforcers and Defiance want to change Metaspace's decision of resetting reality due to the misdeeds of humanity... by use of multiverse-wide Mind Control so that the masses will never conduct misdeeds again and destroying everything so that there would be no one to do so, respectively. They both fail, because of you.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Many of the Enforcer planet rulers that aren't ruthless with their control. They're very nice and understanding, which gets support from the citizens under them. By doing so, they also keep the population in the dark about the Enforcer Leader and his need for Human Resources.
  • Due to this, I.C. and co. get a bad name when these Enforcer rulers are taken down.
• When Dimensions Collide: The premise is when an entire different multiverse that also makes the "current" multiverse's laws of physics and concepts themselves begins to encroach, causing otherworldly beings to start taking over.

Other Tropes

• Animal Theme Naming: Many air units used by the Enforcers and Defiance are named after birds of prey, such as Eagle, Hawk, Falcon, Vulture, Kite, Osprey, Raptor, even though they resemble airplanes more.
  • Subverted with the "Fly" series of Metas, which are small air drone units. They're named that because they can fly!
• Another Dimension: Metaspace, as well as the Magical Dimension.
• Anti-Magic: Valiant technology. One of the newer Metaspace developments, this nullifies all supernatural ability in a very wide radius. It also prevents supernatural teleportation of objects into the radius.
  • If regular Valiant Anti-Magic is somehow nullifed, Valiants themselves are immune to magic damage.
• Applied Phlebotinum
• Blinded by the Light: Some Enforcer units like Brightsparks give out light so intense that it blinds those who look at them without protection.
• Crippling Overspecialization: One weakness of the Metas. Most of their units are specialized to counter certain opponents, but suck at fighting others. For example, Valiants annihilate any users of the supernatural, but absolutely suck at fighting tech users. The truly dangerous ones are those who can perform many specialized jobs at one go.
• Cyberspace: Part of Metaspace. The Enforcer Leader uses it to take over Earth by taking advantage of human's dependance on it, and turns Earth into a twisted version of Cyberspace. Over there, you face once-human metas that act like unscrupulous people, such as hackers, trolls, GIFTs, spambots, scammers, emos, camwhores, phishers. And trustworthy ones like Site Moderators.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Viruses and Hacking abilities are of the Corruptive element, but that doesn't mean that they can't be used by good guys (Glitch, Sharp). In-universe, these sort of powers are illegal by most Meta standards, unless registered.
• Digitized Hacker: Hacker units, who can literally hack the coding of reality and change it. As such, they are very high-tier opponents. One of them is on your side, unfortunately, he can't control his powers.
• Earth That Was: You actually travel to Earth in a Brutal Bonus Level. Unfortunately, it has been taken over by an avatar of the Enforcer Leader himself, and has been turned into a cyber zone resembling the internet.
• Eldritch Abomination/Eldritch Location: Metaspace itself is a dormant entity which is also reality itself. The internet that we all know and use is an extension of it.
  • There are also some elite mooks which are these in disguise. Examples include 1213-TARQUIS, which takes the form of a speed blitzing ninja motorbike and can reality-warp its surroundings into a city-like landscape.
• Energy Absorption: Plasman and Energuy mooks have a ridiculously powerful form of it. Both can absorb any form of energy, including kinetic energy. The latter can even absorb Mana, Ki Energy, Psionic energy, and Life Energy, allowing them to perform Life Drain and Mana Drain. Both have no limit to what they can absorb, preventing Phlebotinum Overload. Fittingly enough, Plasmen and Energuys are vulnerable to Ice-, Darkness-, and Void- based attacks, as those are formed from a lack of energy, therefore removing energy from and damaging them.
• Elemental Embodiment: Metaspace has entities like Math Elementals, Physics Elementals, Chemistry Elementals. The Gifted call Metas "Techno-Elementals", which is actually pretty accurate.
• Elemental Powers: For a sci-fi race, Metas actually have these.
• Energy Beings: Metas are beings that are made of the same energy that the laws of physics are made of. There are also the magical coutnerpart Arcanes, which are Made of Magic.
• Everyone Has a Special Move: Every single character. Including all the bosses and even the Mooks have signature moves. And you get to take those special moves for yourself.
• Feed It with Fire: Many Metas have the ability to absorb attacks of their element. Then there are Mana-powered units that absorb ANY magical attack thrown at them.
• Hard Light: Most "physical" equipment and armor are made of this.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Mostly subverted, as most of the heroes use long-range weaponry or magic. 4rx dual wields Laser Blades, however.
  • Invoked with the "Bane of Heroes" enemy. They're made to be immune to all bladed weapons even known or created, as well as anything with the "blade" in it. (They're also immune to fire, lightning and holy elemental attacks, three elements commonly used by RPG heroes).
• Humongous Mecha: You'll face off against W.E.A.P.O.N.s, which are gigantic machines. Some of the giant robots you face aren't robots, but actually large Metas made of Hard Light.
• Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: Many people who go in there without some form of protection either get killed by rogue programs, go insane from seeing some of them, or worse, become one of them.
• Insistent Terminology: They're Metas, not programs.
• Light Is Not Good: Many of the Enforcers are Light-elemental, and they are Knight Templar people who have no problems slaughtering those who do not join the Enforcers.
  • The "Soul Cleanser" program used by said Light-aligned Enforcers. This is a horrifying move that burns a victim from the inside out with holy flames by using their soul and evil emotions as fuel, and ignores armor. You obtain a modified version that uses the Meta itself as fuel- using it on other Metas causes them to "writhe in pain".
• Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: When attacking a fantasy world, both the Enforcers and Defiance can make short work of melee classes thanks to the Metas' physical intangibility or heavy armor, and the melee classes' short range. The main problems they face are magic users, due to long-range, wide-area spells and the Metas' natural weakness against magic.
• Lovecraft Lite: Even though some of the Enforcer/Defiance Meta are ludicrously powerful Eldritch Abomination aliens, the game and story show that they can be felled with co-operation and exploitation of weaknesses. Then there's a number of said aliens being genuinely Nice Guys.
• The Metaverse: Metaspace is this taken Up To Eleven, people can go inside it without the need of an avatar. Not many would want to do so, however...
• Nigh-Invulnerable: Omni-Proof armour. The only things known to cut it are... Omni-Proof weapons.
  • Some of the enemy generals have an ability that prevents any harm from being dealt to them. However, there is a specific way to counter this, usually via Weaksauce Weakness.
• Punny Name: Several enemies, such as Shockroach, Carburn, Axe Ray, etc.
• Pure Magic Being: Arcanes. Metas are the tech equivalent of this.
• Reality Warper: Most of the Metas have a mild version of this. They are authorized to bend the laws of physics, but each one is only allowed to warp certain laws. Stronger ones have the power to control direction (vectors), or even the arbitrary/conceptual value of something.
  • Stronger Arcane beings are able to do this, usually with less restriction than metas.
• Rule of Cool: Runs on it. The first stage takes place in a spaceship that's breaking apart. The second stage has I.C. ride a rocket from outer space into the planet's atmosphere. And that's just the icing on the cake.
• Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness: All over the place, usually depending on the enemy unit the protagonists are facing. Hero Killers and Eldritch Abomination-tier foes are almost always treated seriously, though.
• Squishy Wizard: There's an Enforcer Officer whose power is to destroy another universe in a very short period of time... from within his pocket dimension. However... it turns out that it's the only thing he's good at- there's a reason why he hides in a pocket dimension. In a direct fight, he's an utter wimp that can't deal much damage and goes down fast.
• Super Weight:
  • 0: Most civilians
  • 1: Most combat-fit Terrans/Humans/Normals
  • 2: Private Steel, Metamorphs in human form
  • 3: I.C., 4rx, Xeno Cyde, Low-level Metas
  • 4: Major Damage, Glitch, Gifted, Mid-level Metas, Low-level Arcanes
  • 5: Raysilon, Defiance Leader, High-level Metas, Mid-level Arcanes
  • 6: Enforcer Leader, Shattered One, Concept-level Metas, High- to Concept-level Arcanes
  • 7: Metaspace itself
• Takes One to Kill One: Omni-Proof armor can only be damaged by Omni-Proof weapons. Later, the protagonists find a magically-created equivalent that does this too.
• Teleport Interdiction: Some Enforcer and Defiance units are a walking No Warping Zone, which prevents anything from teleporting into the area near them or from the area around them. In combat, they are used against Teleport Spammers and Weaponized Teleportation.
  • Unfortunately, this also affects their own units, and as such these rely on transport vehicles to be moved.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
  • There's one Enforcer officer whose job is to shut down and erase universes. He can easily perform a Class X-4 apocalypse with ease.
  • Certain attacks in the game are so powerful, they deal more damage than pretty much any other video game character. If somebody gets hit by them and doesn't have a way to resist, only one damage number comes out- the infinity sign. Later on, all the mooks' melee weapons are upgraded to this, ensuring that they kill players in one hit.
  • A huge number of late-game MOOKS are able to do this. One of the late-game mooks can fire an entire sun at you. The 20ks have a laser that can bust galaxies in one hit. Another of the late-game mooks can fire an ever-expanding hollow Sphere of Destruction wave... that keeps going on and on, enough to eradicate an entire universe. And yes, the last two are just two of those "infinity-damage" attacks. Even the weakest final-area Elite Mooks can rarely transform itself into a Wave-Motion Gun that hits for- you guessed it, infinite damage.
• Unobtanium:
  • Omni-Proof. This material is Nigh-Invulnerable- it can survive a supernova, black hole, dimensional collapse or even a reality-shattering attack and come out unscathed. To put it, none of the above attacks under There Is No Kill Like Overkill can scratch this at all. under The only known way to break it is via Omni-proof weapons.
  • BlackTech: This armor is made from Black Virus, and it allows the wearer to have powerful Stealth capability and Touch of Death on living things. There's also a small chance where the virus inside goes malignant and corrupts the user.
• Villain Protagonist: The Grid Warrior, who is a powerful unit of the Enforcers.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Quite a few. All of the Nigh-Invulnerable enemies have a weakness that, when exposed to, robs them of their invulnerability, or in few case, instantly defeats it. Some weaknesses are the colour blue, ice cream, secondhand smoke, etc.
  "He's killed by ICE CREAM!? That's a lame weakness!"
• Was Once a Man: Organic beings that accidentally wander into Metaspace are transformed into Metas if they are exposed to the strange dimension for too long. Examples include Volcan, Energy X, Hell E. Copter, Shark. Then there's also the people turned by the Enforcer Leader.
• When Dimensions Collide: This is what is happening in the backstory.
• Witch Species: The "Gifted", part Arcane, part human. Justified, as Arcanes are Made of Magic.
• World of Badass: Every Meta, including the worker units, sentient vehicles, and appliances are capable of combat. Even the floor/walls/ceilings of their ships and structures are capable of combat.
  • You know it's this when the President's daughter is an Action Girl with mastery over solids/cold and is competent with a gun.
  • Even Defiance and Enforcer Worker Units join in the badassery with explosives, deadly drills, and mining lasers.
  • Not just the Metas and Gifted, but there are quite a few Muggles who are trained to fight and defeat them as well.