Video Game / A Blurred Line

"What...sort of person...can seal the fate...of millions...and still live...with himself?"

— Core, during the game's introduction

A freeware cyberpunk RPG made with RPG Maker 2000, A Blurred Line follows the story of Talan, a regular blue-collar worker at a factory run by the powerful Delcentric. When the Director of the Agency is assassinated after giving a speech at the factory Talan works at, Talan finds himself the prime suspect and goes on the run. It's then up to Talan to evade his pursuers while getting to the bottom of the mystery at hand.

The game is widely considered (within the RPG Maker community) to be one of the best games made with the program, due to its compelling storyline with meaningful non-linearity. Unfortunately, the game remains unfinished. Although the first two parts are complete, the final chapter, Line's End, was teased for a 2002 release, but since then, there has been no word on it.

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Tropes featured in A Blurred Line include:

• Aborted Arc: There are a few plot strands that seem to go nowhere, likely due to the game being unfinished.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The Advocate, a program designed by a scientist named Eisen for the Agency to coordinate the construction of Catch Colony and allow it to be build ahead of anticipated shortage. It coordinated things very efficiently all right...but it was also very vain and unable to understand death. Thus, when the Kingdom of Surl had sent missiles at Lashe and Prima City, The Advocate had actively refused to activate missile defences and prevented manual overrides, simply because it wanted to see an explosion. The military had to activate self-destruct countdown on the Advocate’s facility before it saw sense and shot the missiles down, though it was too late to spare itself from destruction.
  • The robotic enemies frequently fought on the World Map, such as Malfunctioning Bots, Lost Scouting Probes, Nomadic Droids, etc. also seem to fit the profile, attacking whoever they encounter simply because they’re broken.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Kersh joins your party near the end of the game, but can only be used in battle if you have less than 4 characters at the time as the game does not give you the option of switching party members.
• Artifact Mook: Slime Coaters, Aerobats and Scampering Lizards can be originally fought in the Drust Mines, but are also encountered in the Ill Marshes, which are separated by a whole lot of land and a mountain range.
• Artificial Stupidity: Agency Guards pursuing Talan towards a cliff near Paradise’s entrance can sometimes get stuck bouncing back-and-forth between the sides of a path instead of actually pursuing Talan.
• Blackout Basement: The Dark Catacombs in the Eisen’s simulation, where it’s literally pitch-black, the darkness only abating for a second when you use Dalia’s fire attack. You can permanently remove it by lightning a torch, but those aren’t always present and are typically far away from the entrance.
• Blob Monster: AlleyMuck enemies, and later, Slime Coaters in the Drust Mines. The latter can also cast Poison in addition to regular attacks.
• Bloodless Carnage: When you encounter dead bodies on the level, they usually lack blood and are practically indistinguishable from still-living people. This can be really confusing during the particularly tragic events such as the destruction of Paradise.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Right after seeing that Talan is capable of resisting his psychic powers, a highly experienced Agency Captain decides to just leave and let a pair of regular Agency Guards take care of him.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: Played straight in the Defender test, where you need to buy your own pickaxe in order to excavate the rocks. Cheaper pickaxes will break after a while, and Talan needs rather deep pockets to afford Mythril or Enchanted Pickaxes that won’t break.
• Broken Bridge: There’s literally a long bridge over Lashe River that has a huge section missing from the middle, thus blocking the way. Another road is blocked off by an avalanche. Most others are out of bounds due to the presence of Agency barricades.
• By-the-Book Cop: Dalia is one, relying on her extensive knowledge of rules and regulations to compensate for the frequent lack of personal judgement.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Most creatures are named properly, bu there’s a bear-like monster that’s named Ursalimnicus, and so-called Gorges that look exactly like Hippos.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Memnosyne initially appears that way, but Talan soon understands she knows more than she lets on. It turns out that she had been the Keeper of Memories who stored the memories of every person who survived Surl's destruction in the vicinity.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Averted with the Agency Captain, who can be poisoned with the appropriate skill. Agency Tram can be both poisoned and made to bleed, even though that makes no sense for a metal train.
• Crapsack World: The Catch Colony provides the world with a limitless amount of energy, at the cost of the world being overrun with factories needed to refine the energy. Waste from these factories has caused creatures such as rats to mutate.
• Critical Hit: Present,and they’re always referred to as “An excellent attack!” when scored by the protagonists. Wearing items such as Lucky Bandana will increase their frequency. Weirdly, the ones inflicted by enemies are still referred to as a Critical Strike.
• Cutscene Incompetence: Talan simply stands around and does nothing during the bandit attack on Paradise until one bandit shoots Drago with a bow but hits Isabella instead. It’s completely unforgivable if he’s a Defender and even as a Farmer, he still has more combat experience than the majority of Defenders.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: An Agency Guard manages to make Arden fall down the ravine by zapping her with electricity. Whenever you fight them in actual combat, they lack electrical attacks of any kind.
  • Similarly, a bandit manages to shoot Isabella with a powerful poison arrow in the Farmer/Defender storyline. None of the bandits you fight before or after have such poison, or even bows or arrows.
• Cyberspace: Dalia ends up trapped in Eisen’s simulation, which functions like that.
• Damage Sponge: Invoked with the Dragon of Tenemar Keep inside Eisen’s simulation. If Dalia interacts with it, she gets a comment left behind by Elsen that it has 20,000 HP and can only be hurt by Starfire, and thus needs to be balanced.
• Decoy Protagonist: The prologue is from the viewpoint of Kersh, Cole and Manta as they try to stop Talan from destroying the Link holding the Catch Colony to the Earth. The rest of the game sets up Talan's motives for doing such an act.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The (altered) security camera footage of the Director’s assassination is monochrome. So is the flashback to the founding of the Paradise, and Talan’s recounting of the Flashbang vidcasts.
  • There’s also a Limited Palette version of this when you let Talan take the first watch at the Memnosyne’s house. she tries to read his memories, and it turns out that he went blind at the age of 13, and can only see due to his visor, which doesn’t process colours besides blues and greens.
• Dem Bones: Some Undead enemies in the abandoned theatre near Paradise, such as a Risen Dead skeleton with a sword and a shield and a Skeletal Warrior with two scimitars. Then, there are traditional skeletons in the dungeons within Eisen’s simulation.
• Doomed Hometown: Subverted with Paradise: it is not Talan’s hometown, but rather it is a place where he makes his new home after escaping from the Agency. However, it gets burnt down to the ground regardless.
• Driven to Suicide: Pierson had shot himself so that he wouldn’t have to live past the destruction of Paradise.
• Dual Wielding: Rogue Bandits, and their upgraded version, Skilled Bandits, fight with two daggers. Skeletal Warriors have two swords. Finally, Arden can be equipped with dual knives as well.
• Easily Forgiven: Emily swiftly takes care of Kersh once he loses his memory, thus forgiving his involvement in the destruction of the entire country of Surl and the razing of Paradise, her own hometown.
• Elemental Powers: Talan can absorb spells from one of the six auras, which roughly correspond to the following elements:
  • Playing with Fire: Red aura spells. They’re a mix of damage-dealing spells like MinorFire, Explosion and FlamingWeapon (Talan-only attack boost), and status effect-curing ones like Cauterize (stops bleeding), CandleFlame (cures blindness) and even Thermometer (cures Sickness). The ultimate spell is to summon a Fire Drake.
  • Making a Splash: Blue Aura spells. They include both pure water-based spells like RainDrop and CleansingRain (weak damage-dealing spell and a powerful one) and GatheringWaves (attack boost) as well as three healing spells (SingleCure, CureAll and FocusedCure). The ultimate spell is summoning a Deep Lord.
  • Green Thumb: Green Aura spells. Mainly focused on buffs and debuffs, with spells including Poison, Antidote, MightOfRedwoods (really powerful attack boost), TurtleShell (defence increase) Brambles (agility debuff) and a revival skill called LifeFromDecay. The ultimate spell is to summon a Gorilla Monarch.
  • Dishing Out Dirt: The Yellow Aura spells. They include EarthShake and StingingPebbles Area of Effect attacks, self-explanatory FallingBoulder, TurnToStone and SharpAsDiamonds (attack buff), WallOfStone and Inscribe (which buffs whatever elemental walls are already cast by the party). The final spell is to summon Original Golem.
  • Light 'em Up: The White Aura spells. Most of it is various forms of healing, such as LifeFromDeath, HighCure, HighCureAll, TotalCleanse and Invigorate (the first and most basic spell that heals the whole group), plus BlindingFlash. The ultimate spell is to summon Archangel.
  • Shock and Awe: Black aura spells are a combination of this and Dark Is Evil. There are two electrical attacks (PowerDrain and ShortCircuit), and the ability to control machines. The rest is nastiness like Infect (causes Sickness) and LifeForStrength (essentially an Action Bomb attack), as well as Sacrifice (Talan dies to heal/revive everyone else). The ultimate spell is to summon a Final Lich.
• Energy Absorption: There’s a skill named PowerDrain, but confusingly, it simply inflicts Black Aura damage and doesn’t drain any SP. Oh, and certain Undead enemies can cast it, somehow. The Poltergeist boss in the Theatre is really capable of absorbing energy, and so can Lerle if he impersonates a Ghost.
• Enemy Summoner: The first boss, King Rat, summons regular GiantRats for help twice during the battle.
• Equipment Spoiler: The items that cannot be equipped to the characters already present in the party (such as staves or motor oil) show up early on, thus foreshadowing the presence of future/alternate party members.
• Fantasy Gun Control: Downplayed. Apparently, the time of Shortage, when the humanity’s consumption had outstripped the supplies of easily available resources, had made guns very rare, and by the events of the game, only the Agency Guards can afford to wield firearms on a large scale.
• Fiery Redhead: Corporal Dalia is considered to be that by the Director of the Agency, who says that though loyal, she lacks a gentle touch. When you actually get to play as her, however, she actually acts very professionally (to the point of being completely unable to go against orders), and does an admirable job of controlling her temper given the circumstances.
• First Kiss: Happens between Talan and Emily after he takes the blame for using a forbidden radio in Paradise so that she won’t get banished.
• Flaming Sword: There’s a Flaming Weapon skill available to Talan if he absorbs medium red aura during combat.
• Reformed Criminal: If you let Memnosyne look into Radin's dreams, he turns out to be a former bandit before he joined Paradise and abandoned his past. He continued to help the bandits around Paradise by delivering food to them, hoping that they’ll arrive at peace with Paradise once they’re not starved for food. He’s wrong, and bandit leader, Saren, tells him to get out as soon as he can.
• Future Copter: The Agency Tram, which is basically a rather traditional dropship. It’s equipped with a chaingun and carries loads of liquid fire canisters, but apparently it can still be brought down by two youths with clubs and knives.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Fury Punch is a high-damage skill used by Core in combat, but he also uses it when he needs to break through locked doors.
  • Then, Talan will walk slower with a noticeable limp after he breaks his leg falling off a building. His status in the menu will change from Normal to Limping, and it will last up until he gets it fixed by a doctor.
• Ghibli Hills: the countryside around Lashe City, where both Sorbe Village and Yun Town are practically idyllic in contrast to the gritty and polluted Lashe.
• Giant Space Flea Out Of Nowhere: The Burrower sand worm boss, which appears with literally no foreshadowing at the end of a Sand Canyon section.
• Giant Spider: The so-called Crawlers at the Drust Mines.
• Goggles Do Nothing: Averted for Talan. The visor he always wears turns out to be the only way he can see. If you have Talan take the first watch at Memnosyne’s house, she’ll look into his memories and find that memories past childhood are all blue-green in hue. When she asks, he reveals that his ocular nerves were destroyed by a degenerative disease when he was 13, and the visor’s implants are the only thing that gives him the limited vision he does have.
• Good Bad Bugs: Invoked in the Eisen’s simulation. When you finish the catacombs, you're told that a bug causes instant death upon going back in there. You have to come back, and Dalia does get killed; but that's a good thing for you, as it sends her right back to the entrance, so that she doesn't have to traverse through the whole thing again.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Radin, available as a companion to Talan if he chooses to become a Farmer, only fights with his bare fists, and is quite good at it, too. Emily also only fights with her fists, although she does wear different kinds of gloves.
• Grievous Bottley Harm: A broken bottle can be found early on in the Rat Tracks. It’s stronger than a Bent Pipe that’s also lying around closely, but weaker than a Wrench you can pick up while still inside the Delcentric bulding.
  • It’s even lampshaded when you can potentially take a Broken Bottle for a Craftsman for repair. He refuses to do it, saying that it's more useful as a weapon anyway.
• Guns Are Useless: Agency Guards are equipped with assault rifles with added laser sights. Yet, when they’re first fought, they still deal roughly the same damage per turn as what Talan and Arden can inflict with a wrench and a knife, respectively. Similarly, Upgraded Walkers appear to carry twin gatling guns on their back, yet they still inflict barely twice the damage that regular Security Walkers do. For reference, if Talan is Level 8 and decked out in appropriate gear, that’s 6 damage versus 3, with full health being 79. Oh, and Red Wylden, a monster on the other side of the river, will inflict around 9 with a regular two-handed sword.
• Healing Checkpoint: Averted, and since the random encounters are so easy, it’s literally the only way the game still maintains some challenge.
• Heel–Face Brainwashing: Happens to Kersh, after Memnosyne transfers the memories of Surl’s destruction into his mind to punish him for orchestrating the false-flag attack that led to it. It doesn’t last, however, and he goes back to his evil self after discovering the Package over in Surl.
• He Knows About Timed Hits: The Eisen’s simulation works like this:

  Tower Guard: The Tower is dangerous, Princess! I can’t let you up until you’re at least level 5!

  Dalia: I hate video games.

  • Talan also occasionally gets in on the act:
    Talan: Now that I’m finally out of Lashe City, I can save my game anywhere on the World Map.
• Human Shield: The Agency’s training for Squad Leaders specifically teaches them to ignore the hostages. This can be seen if you let Sern take the first watch outside Memnosyne’s house. When she looks into his memories, it turns out that he, Drago and Isabella were all originally part of the Agency before defecting. Drago’s turning point was when he was asked by the examiner if he would kill a terrorist about to launch a nuclear device if they used Sern and Isabella as human shields.
• Hired Gun: A Large Man on the street in Lashe thinks that Talan is one of the best, and actually lives at Boss Wick’s place because he must have had been paid tons of creds to kill the Director. Of course, he’s totally wrong, as not only is Talan innocent, but he’s very poor as well.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The very first fight in the game is potentially like that. If you choose a certain route to work in the opening, you're up against four Lazer Teeth thugs. No matter what equipment you buy at the shops with your 100 credits, it’s impossible to put down more than two before you’re defeated and taken prisoner.
  • Then, there’s the battle against Kersh outside of Memnosyne’s house. He has quite a few powerful abilities, but can still be fought valiantly… up until the 10th turn or so, when Talan ends the battle himself, saying that he’s too strong.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Food snacks like a Bag of Chips, a Cold Sandwhich or Fresh Pita act as healing items, while Bottled Water and Cheap Wine restore SP.
• Idiot Ball: Yes, Manta, you should totally go off to fetch Eisen and leave Dalia, who knows nothing about computers, alone with a highly manipulative AI.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: There are plenty of boxes/chests housing various helpful items. Their presence and contents are occasionally plausible – the numbers in which they appear (road to Paradise through the forest is essentially littered with chests) and placement, not so much. It’s especially distracting to see shiny new metal boxes in decayed slums or Rat Tracks.
• Ignored Epiphany: Dalia hears the story of the Advocate and its inability to be controlled properly first-hand from Eisen, the scientist who has actually developed it. Yet, at the end of it, she still asks him to re-activate it like she’s been instructed to.
  • Same happens to Kersh after he regains his memories. Experiencing the destruction he caused from the perspective of his victims sadly wasn't enough for him to reform.
• Informed Equipment: Regardless of what kind of clothing you have equipped on Talan and his companions, they’ll still wear their starter equipment on their sprites.
• Item Crafting: Radin, a companion for Farmer Talan, is capable of crafting healing potions, stat-increasing ones and bombs out of the ingredients that can be found in chests or that he can dig up. Sern, a Defender companion, can create really powerful weapons as long as his skill (increased by scanning enemies during battles) is high enough.
• Invincible Hero: Max Powertrain from the Flashbang vidcasts Talan always watched in Lashe City. In the season four of the program, however, his personality changed after he’s been blinded for life by one of the thugs.
• Jiggle Physics: Emily’s breasts jiggle when she walks. It’s not usually noticeable unless you study her moving sprite on the equipment selection screen in shops.
• Joke Item: Trying Arden's Pickpocket during fights with DirtShadows gives you Dust Balls, which do absolutely nothing and can be "sold" for 0 credits.
• Just Following Orders: Emily attempts to invoke this on Kersh’s behalf after his role in the destruction of Surl becomes known.
• Laser Sight: The Agency Guards have those attached to their guns. They still miss rather often, however.
• McGuffin: The Package, which is given to Talan by Pierson after the destruction of Paradise. It’s never explained what it is, other than that the Agency wants it and that it is not to be opened. At the end, Kersh seems regain his memory as the result of opening it, and he takes it back with himself.
• MegaCorp: Delcentric, the place where Talan works at the beginning of the game, turns out to be powerful enough to buy out many other companies and even be nicknamed as the "Corporate Devourer". It all comes as a real shock to Talan, a typical underpaid corporate drone, when he hears it from a person who’s been laid off from a company that was bought and restructured by Delcentric.
• Money Spider: Wild creatures like MutantMice, Aerobats or SalvagePups will consistently drop credits (more than a 100 per encounter on the World Map) and can have medical items like Anti-Venom Vials or food items like Cold Sandwiches, Pita Bread or Cheap Wine pick-pocketed off them. Weirdly, Shellosks, mutant shellfish fought on the World Map only, will almost always drop Bottled Water when defeated.
• Mummy: There are mummy-like monsters called Decaying Shamblers fighting out on the streets of Lashe City.
• No One Could Survive That!: The liquid fire bombardment of the forest near Paradise is considered that by the captain of the Agency Tram. Unfortunately, the Tram’s scanner detects Talan and Arden as they exit it, forcing them to fight it again.
• No Man Wants an Amazon: Seems to be played straight, as Talan fails to develop feelings of any kind for the tough, tomboyish Arden in spite of having been with her for quite a while (assuming, of course, that he ends up with her as an early companion, instead of the robot or the Lazer Teeth agent Saldra). Yet, he instantly falls for the far more feminine Emily.
• NPC Roadblock: In Sorbe Village, it’s impossible to go on the bridge through to the other side of the town because the old lady is standing there.
• Older Than They Look: As seen in the game's flashbacks, Kersh and the Agency Director don't appear to have aged in 30 years. The fact that Kersh has no aura had led some to believe they are artificial humans.
• One Hitpoint Wonder: Played straight with Dalia in Eisen’s simulation. Luckily, the skeletons you fight are the same.
• Orphaned Series: Seems to be the case now. The conclusion, titled Line's End was teased at the end of version 2.1, with a release date of Winter 2003. 17 years have passed since then with no update.
• Our Giants Are Bigger: There’s a so-called Lumbering Giant that’s a traditional enemy with a club.
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: There’s a so-called Lair that lives in the labyrinth beneath the bandit hideout. It looks just like traditional minotaur, complete with a huge warhammer and a nose ring, but is never referred to by that name.
• Our Orcs Are Different: There are the Green and Red Wylden, which are orc-like monsters equipped with swords that can be encountered on the World Map around Lashe City. Red ones are more powerful, but are still quite easy to defeat.
• Palette Swap: Done for quite a few enemies. For instance, Skilled Bandits look like Rogue Bandits with green cloaks, Mighty Shellocks are a purple version of regular Shellocks, Living Molds are toxic-pink versions of AlleyMuck, etc.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • Mythril Armor. It’s the most powerful armor in the game, but if you fail to get it at the Paradise, there’s no other way to obtain it.
  • The Pickaxes for Talan. Enchanted Pickaxe is the most powerful weapon Talan can wield, excepting those crafted by Sern. Yet, if you don’t buy it during the Defender test, there’s no other way to obtain it.
• Pig Man: Obling Warriors, Shamans and Scouts appear to be pigs that retain their original height, but have mutated to stand on two legs only, with their forelegs turning into rather sharp claws. In those, they can wield axes, and they’ll also wear some clothing. Their shamans will even constantly cast damaging MinorFire when fought. Weirdly, regular Oblings barely look like pigs, lacking snouts and all and resembling traditional demons instead.
• Power Copying: Three characters have variations on this:
  • In the prologue, Manta has Mind Probe skill that supposedly does this. However, it only works on living enemies and he never actually encounters those.
  • Talan can perceive and absorb the auras of his enemies (see Elemental Powers above), gaining new spells in the process. If he absorbs a spell enough times, he retains it permanently.
  • Lerle, an actor, has the ability to "act" like certain enemies and learn their forms for use in later fights. It doesn't work on all enemies, and requires one-on-one encounters, but it only needs to succeed once for a form (complete with three useful abilities) to be added to the repertoire.
• Random Encounter: Fought both in regular locations and on the world map.
• Rare Candy: There are pills (such as the Agility Pill) which permanently increase characters’ primary attributes. It’s even possible to buy those from the shops, although their price (2000) only makes them an option for particularly rich travellers.
• Rat Stomp: In a slight subversion, the three kinds of mutant rats are not the weakest enemies overall, being stronger than DirtShadows, SalvagePups and AlleyMuck.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: If Talan is a Defender, Sern will tell him that too many Defenders just sit around playing cards and it’ll cause trouble one day. It does cause trouble, but only in the Actor storyline, where the Defender who didn't see the play weren't guarding the tunnel as the Agency Guards came through to attack.
• Rose-Haired Sweetie: Averted with Corporal Dalia, who has pink hair but is certainly not a nice person. She’s very stuffy and formal, and is also very ruthless. The latter is illustrated really well in Sern’s dreams as seen by Memnosyne, where she considers the Agency Squad Leader test to be "incredibly easy". For reference, that test asks if you would sacrifice two of your friends for the sake of stopping a nuke launch by a crazed terrorist – i.e. something that would cause most people to at least question themselves, if not outright refuse to do it.
• Scratch Damage: Averted, as it’s entirely possible for Talan or his companions to avoid taking damage completely if their defence is high enough relative to the enemy's attack.
• Secret Test of Character: Talan is goes through the night before he’s supposed to have his Trials to be allowed to stay in the Paradise. He hears a girl crying outside his house and follows her up the cliff, where she appears about to jump off. He tries to persuade her to stop, and fails to do so, after which he jumps after her and gets heavily injured in process. This situation had been a set-up, however, and by jumping, he had proven his worth the way no-one could before.
• Sidetrack Bonus: Going down one of many side paths will usually lead you to the box with some helpful item in it.
  • Lampshaded by a person you meet in a Sorbe Village, who says that it pays to search in every nook and cranny while out in the wilderness, and that there was one time when he found a large axe on the side of the road.
• Smash Mook: Every somewhat powerful enemy, as the absolute majority of enemies have no special abilities at all, and cannot do anything in combat besides attacking. Thus, stronger enemies like Lumbering Giants, Upgraded Walkers or Evolved Marshiles only differ from regular enemies in their health and damage output.
• Spear Carrier: Invoked in the Theatre Ruins, where there’s a ghostly skeleton with a spear literally named Spear Carrier.
• Squishy Wizard: Kersh becomes this when he joins the party. He begins with 52 HP when Talan, Emily and other companions would have 100+ HP by that point. However, his Memories’ skills are very powerful, with Memories of Hate easily dealing 200 damage to all enemies when others would struggle to inflict above 60.
• Status Effects: Very standard. There’s poison, darkness and bleeding, and even effects rare in non-fantasy works like petrification (cured with De-Stonifier Potion.)
• Story Branching: The plot changes quite significantly depending on two decisions: whether Talan will wait for the Tram to get to work or try to walk there alone, and if he will be a Defender, a Farmer or an Actor at Paradise.
  • The first decision will affect whether you arrive late or on time (and thus whether you'll have time to claim your last wage and a few other good things), and change your companion for the pre-Paradise sections. Walking there gets Talan involved in street gang warfare; helping Neon Vipers will result in their female member Arden joining you as a companion, while Lazer Teeth will back him with Saldra. Waiting for the tram will result in Talan's credits stolen by a stolen goods merchants who compensates him with Ag 7-17, an outdated military droid that's good to go after Talan fixes it with a memory chip. Neither companion will make it into Paradise, however (Arden or Saldra get captured, while the droid is forbidden by Paradise laws), though Talan will still think about them in a Dream Sequence.
  • The decision about professions in Paradise will result in Talan going through three completely different quests before Paradise is destroyed. Afterwards, this decision also determines which companion will fight alongside Talan and Emily for the rest of the game: Sern if Talan is a Defender, Radin if he's a Farmer and Lerle if he's an Actor.
• Super Drowning Skills: Apparently true for Dalia in Eisen’s simulation.

  Dalia: I can’t cross water – even in a simulation.

• Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: The road to Paradise has far too many item chests even by the game’s standards? Cue an Agency Dropship boss fight.
• Tap on the Head: In the Defender storyline, Talan gets knocked out by a stone thrown at his head by a bandit, and comes back to his senses a while later with no ill effects.
• Timed Mission: Talan’s story opens with him oversleeping and needing to get to work in 10 minutes. Then, there’s a section in the forest which was bombed with liquid fire by the Agency Tram, forcing you to get out of there in under two minutes.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Memnosyne tries to absorb Talan’s memories when he’s on guard duty, but discovers that his mind is too strong and he’s instead made contact with her mind, forcing her to drop the whole thing.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: There’s a pretty terrible driving segment where you’re supposed to escape Lashe City on a motorway while trying to avoid crashing into oncoming vehicles. Not only are you’re going ridiculously fast, but the vehicles like to change lanes unexpectedly and the camera is so zoomed it’s impossible to see them coming with more than a second to spare. Thankfully, it’s possible to skip it if you fail enough times.
  • Then, there's a segment for Eisen where he needs to find his way through an obstacle course of sorts to the Advocate without getting exhausted, "Princess" Dalia segment in the Cyberspace and a PacMan-like hacking minigame played from the Advocate's perspective.
• Useless Useful Spell: Wall of (element) spells. They’re expensive to cast, costing 25 SP, and offer little, if any, physical protection, seemingly defending only against their element. Given that very few enemies cast elemental spells (and those that do generally cannot have a Wall spell absorbed from them anyway), they’re practically useless.
  • They can be made a lot more powerful with Inscribe, but that requires Talan to have permanently absorbed both spells. Unless you grind a lot, that will not happen by the time you reach the end of the currently available version.
  • LifeForStrength and Sacrifice spells are similar. Quite simply, there is never a fight challenging enough to require Talan giving up all his health to damage the enemy or to heal others.
• Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: There’s a flamethrower weapon for the AG 7-17 Droid. It’s good for barbecuing Snarling Wolves (who are weak to fire), but it’s no more powerful than Talan’s clubs vs. everyone else, and the Fire Blast ability is also rather disappointing compared to the others on offer.
• Violation of Common Sense: Besides enemies carrying things they shouldn’t be able to (see Money Spider above), it’s also possible to inflict bleeding and poisoning against mechanical enemies. One of the best ways to defeat Agency Tram boss is to have Arden inflict bleeding on it through backstab.
  • Then again, being able to hit an airborne dropship (which is what an Agency Tram actually is) from the ground with knives and clubs already violates a lot of common sense.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In the Actor storyline, most of the village is away from Paradise at the Theatre when Agency attacks and torches it to the ground. In the Defender one, most of the Defenders leave town to go after the bandits when the event occurs. Yet, all of them are still somehow assumed dead when Talan returns to Paradise’s ruins to bury corpses.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: For someone who used to be just a regular factory drone, Talan is oddly unfazed about killing unnamed people in his way. It’s possible to kill up to 2 Lazer Teeth thugs in his opening, yet Talan doesn't spare a single thought about them. He is equally uncaring about killing Agency Guards at the start, who had nothing to do with framing him.
• Wooden Katanas Are Even Better: Averted. It’s possible to buy a Wooden Sword for Lerle at the Paradise Weapon Shop, but it’s so cheap and so weak that it’s practically pointless to do so. Other wooden weapons are also weaker than their metal counterparts.
• You All Look Familiar: Quite a few character sprites are re-used often, such the one for the bearded, purple-cap wearing man and for a purple-haired woman.
  • Weirdly, all the bandits that are attacking Paradise are drawn as horned, green-haired, female pixies in the cutscenes for some reason, even though that couldn’t be more different to their real appearance in battle mode, where they’re the always-male, cloaked and masked figures wielding two daggers.
  • Young Emily uses the same sprite as Sally Kesman, a girl from the Kingdom of Surl who saw Kersh hack into a Surl's missile base in order to trigger a nuclear launch and thus start the war the Agency was bound to win.

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