In the early 2050's, unknown life forms called Oracle Cells began their uncontrollable consumption of all life on Earth. Their violent nature and god-like adaptability earned them the name "Aragami". Facing an enemy completely immune to conventional weapons, modern society collapses as humanity is driven to the point of extinction.
One last hope remains. Following the Fenrir Organization’s development of God Arcs, Oracle Cell-based living weapons, their wielders are organized into an elite force of God Eaters. Your mission is to defeat the Aragami and gather material from them for research, but you come to realize that you are being drawn into a giant conspiracy that will determine the fate of humanity...
Released in Japan on February 4, 2010 for the PlayStation Portable, Bandai Namco Entertainment's God Eater has established its foothold in the Hunting RPG genre alongside the Monster Hunter franchise, though it differs from said franchise by its faster pace in combat, easy-to-grasp gameplay mechanics, as well as having a wide list of characters and an actual plot. An Updated Re-release, titled God Eater Burst, was released on October 26, 2010 in Japan and March 15, 2011 in the rest of the world. It adds a second storyline which expands upon the original. A remake, God Eater Resurrection, was released in Japan on October 15, 2015, June 28, 2016 in North America, and August 30 in Europe for the PlayStation 4, Play Station Vita, and Steam. It adds yet another storyline, as well as the new weapon types from the sequel, improved graphics, and the Predator Styles, which add several variations on the Devour move.
It has a sequel, God Eater 2. An anime adaptation started airing during the Summer 2015 season, though its conclusion only came out in Spring 2016.
- Always in Class One: All of the main characters are part of the 1st Unit. Justified in that the 1st Unit has the highest survival rate for rookies, so obviously Fenrir would want the recently-minted New-Types to get some experience.
- Anyone Can Die:
- Hammered into you early on with Eric der Vogelweid, who gets devoured just as he's introducing himself to you. He doesn't look at all like cannon fodder at the time, so it really comes out of nowhere. It's used to play up Soma's reputation for other God Eaters dying in his proximity.
- This is followed by Lindow. However, he comes Back from the Dead by the end of the Burst story.
- Autobots, Rock Out!: Avenging Lindow in the fight against the Dyaus Pita is set to "No Way Back", a vocal rock track.
- The Bait: Kota's "Lovely Lindow Luring Line-Up" plan uses a team of female-only God Eaters as bait to lure out Lindow. After it ended in failure he reveals "Version 2" which is Version 1, but with beer.
- Big Damn Heroes: The First Unit (the one the player character is in) is considered to be this trope by the Second and Third Units. Each member gets a Big Damn Heroes moment before the group heads out to stop Arda Nova in the God Eater storyline.
- Pulled by the protagonist during the Burst storyline when s/he saves Tatsumi from the Corrosive Hannibal.
- In chapter six, Alisa saves Sakuya upon arriving at Aegis, then proceeds to take this trope up to eleven after the director finishes his Motive Rant.
- Canon Name: Yuu Kannagi (Shinji Kagura in overseas version of Resurrection), Aki Tamashiro (the latter's name revealed in the pachi-slot game) for God Eater, and Lenka Utsugi for the anime.
- Cutscene Power to the Max:
- Early on in the game, the group tackles a group of endgame-level Aragami. Several of them already have a reputation of being able to take on such powerful Aragami from the start, though.
- Much later on in the game, during the new Burst story line, your Heroic Mime speaks to Lindow, Dual Wields his/her God Arc and Lindow's, then proceeds to rip the final boss's mouth open. It's as awesome looking as it sounds. Immediately subverted when Ren informs the protagonist that said dual-wield attack actually dealt relatively little damage to the Aragami. Ultimately a double subversion, as the last story mission makes it clear that Ren wanted the protagonist to head off to a Battle in the Center of the Mind.
- In the promotional OVA, the characters rip through Aragami like, well, Aragami rip through humans. Handwaved by many who say that Aragami have evolved since the years in the OVA.
- Dub Name Change: The title of the game itself as well as the player character's profession was changed from "God Eater" to "Gods Eater" (although the "s" is not spoken in dialogue) in Gods Eater Burst. This change was most likely done to avoid offending any concerned parties. Resurrection and the sequels undo this.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: Soma is considered all but cursed because supposedly any squad he's in has an unusually high casualty rate, not because of anything he does but simply because they keep falling into bad situations. Eric's death drums this in during Soma's introductory mission. You're not actually at any risk using Soma in your squad, though.
- Heroic BSoD: Happens to the protagonist upon discovering that the Hannibal is actually Lindow transformed into an Aragami.
- Inconsistent Dub: The publishers aren't even trying to hide the fact that the Dub Name Change to Gods Eater Burst was a last minute thing. While the in-game text uses "Gods Eater," the spoken dialogue uses "God Eater."
- Info Dump: Paylor Sakaki's lectures on the nature of the Aragami, which also provide some extremely subtle Foreshadowing when he mentions the possibility of Aragami that have "learned" to imitate humanity. Not only does this clearly foreshadow Shio, but in a more blink-and-you'll-miss-it way it ends up reinforcing Alisa's brainwashing that leads her to attempt to kill Lindow under the belief he was the Aragami that killed her parents.
- Interface Spoiler: Eric's death isn't quite so surprising — every mission starts with a squad list, which is automatically filled out for story missions. Soma's on the list for that mission but Eric isn't, so while the cutscene starts by passing him off as a companion, you should realize that something is about to remove him from the equation.
- It May Help You on Your Quest: See those raven feathers? The ones that are indicated as Shop Fodder and sell for 4000fc? The ones the merchant constantly urges you to sell? Better keep three of those.
- Noah's Story Arc: This is Johannes von Schicksal's plan in Burst.
Basically, The Aegis Project was just a front for a secret Ark Project which involved a certain MacGuffin Super-Person being some sort of key that will give Johaness the power of God, where a select few population were to be shipped to the moon while the rest of the world are to be nuked to oblivion along with the Aragami. It should be noted though that Johannes had no intention of being with the ones to repopulate the earth though, knowing well how extreme his actions are. - Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Lindow's profile unlocked at the very beginning of the game states that he's the only God Eater to take down an Ouroboros alone. This kind of power, along with the Cutscene Power to the Max example above, isn't really borne out in gameplay... maybe he's too distracted trying to protect your lame rookie ass?
- Official Couple:
- Lindow and Sakuya. At the end of the Burst storyline, they get married.
- In the the manga and light novels, Alisa and Yuu (the canon name for the Burst protagonist).
- Playable Epilogue: Burst adds one after defeating Arda Nova. it's about as long as the main game itself, since it continues the subplot about Lindow going AWOL. After finishing that one, you can play through everything again(though the same goes for the first half, but it's not technically the end of Burst, but the original GE) plus new bonus chapters that allow you to unlock new postgame Infinity Plus One Swords (there are several because of the game's equipment tiers) and other equipment and rerecruit dead or Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence characters.
- Resurrection has an additional one that takes place after the Burst storyline, which deals with a Nova fragment devouring multiple Aragami and mutating into a Mix And Match Creature and gives more closure between the characters that leads into 2.
- Shipper on Deck: In the manga and light novels, all the members of the 1st unit ships Yuu and Alisa, including Soma in his own way.
- Ship Tease: The manga and light novels were pretty obvious that there are some "Yuu X Alisa" moments anywhere.
- Spoiler Opening: Burst's intro, which was also used in Resurrection, spoils several plot points such as Lindow's death, Alisa's brainwashing, Kota being chosen for the Ark Project, Lindow taking over Johannes' place as Branch Director, Shio ending up on the moon, Lindow turning into an Aragami, and Ren being connected to Lindow. Most are a blink-and-you'll-miss-it deal, but after progressing through the story a bit, some spoilers can become more apparent.
- Trigger Phrase: A Russian count of "one, two, three," dubiously transliterated as "Ajin duva touri" in the English language release for Burst, is the phrase used for Alisa. This is corrected to the more widely accepted romanization of "Odin, dva, tri" in Resurrection's redone dub and script.
- Updated Re-release:
- God Eater Burst, which adds a new storyline dealing with Lindow's fate. Since the original release never came out in the West, this was the first version English-speaking gamers could play.
- A second one, God Eater Resurrection, was released for Vita, PS4, and Steam. In addition to the visual and performance upgrades inherent with remaking a PSP game for modern systems, it also retrofits the sequel's additional weapon types into the game, cleans up the localization, and adds yet another storyline which ties into the sequel.
