Video Game / Absinthia

Absinthia is a 2023 RPG Maker MZ game developed by Joshua Keith and Team Bewitched. It's the fourth game of Timeline 2 of the Knights of Ambrose series and the sequel to Celestial Hearts.

Sera, Thomas, and Jake train under Freya in order to defend Katti Town from the evil sorceress Lilith, and they somehow succeed in driving her off despite her fearsome track record from previous games. However, Freya warns that Lilith will eventually attack again, and therefore they need to prepare. Unfortunately, it's way too good to be true that the party could defeat such a menacing villainess so early into the game, and there's something the Katti trio doesn't realize about Freya and Lilith.

Download from Steam, itch, or Google Play.

---

This work contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Jake's homophobic parents forced him to go through conversion therapy, and when that didn't work, they whipped him with a belt. As a result, Jake ran away and resorted to thievery to survive.
• Ambiguously Human: Lilith is an angel-turned-human, but she still states that she will never die, making it ambiguous if she can be considered a mortal. Not helping matters is that the Halonian Knights capture her alive and never try to kill her.
• Ascended Extra: Ruthea was an optional boss in Celestial Hearts with little impact on the main story. In this game, she's an important person in Freya's backstory as Freya's ex. She's also a Guest-Star Party Member in a flashback, in the Typh Village sidequest, and in Lilith's final phase.
• The Atoner:
  • Ruthea spends much of her screentime trying to look for Freya in order to atone for outing the latter to the other Halonian Knights. In the optional Typh Village quest, she'll rescue the party from the Drakonite Cult. In the final battle, she saves Freya from Lilith and helps defeat the villainess. In the ending, the two aren't ready to restart their relationship yet, but they are on better terms.
  • Freya herself secretly collaborated with Lilith so that the latter attacks Katti Town while the former fends her off. This causes Ethel to get a heart attack when Lilith launches a surprise attack on the town, and Lilith later reveals the truth to the town when Freya turns on her. The town refuses to forgive Freya, but Freya still works to defeat Lilith for real in order to make up for her mistakes, in exchange for never setting foot in town after the journey is over.
• Battle Couple:
  • Jake and Thomas are a couple and are part of the team to defend Katti Town.
  • Freya and Ruthea were once a couple and went on at least a few adventures together during their time in the Halonian Knight order, but split up when Ruthea outed Freya as trans to their fellow knights without her permission. They become an example of this trope again during Lilith's final phase, and are able to perform the Ragnarok team skill perfectly.
• Book Dumb:
  • If the party pays off Violet's student debt, everyone will state that the rich should be taxed, except for Sera who doesn't know what taxes are.
  • Despite having no formal training in chemistry, Jake is quick to learn how to brew potions when Thomas's wound is infected. In the ending, he uses this newfound skill to get a job making potions for Halonia's military.
• Brought Down to Badass: In the previous games, Lilith was an angel who eventually became a demon. After losing to the party of Celestial Hearts, she claims that she has been reduced to being a human. She's still a powerful Magic Knight who can casually summon Typhus of all beings as an undead minion.
• Cast from Hit Points: Thomas learns the Planetary spell, which is so powerful that it will always deal damage to him too, which functions as HP cost. However, if Jake is able to use skills, the attack animation will include Jake healing Thomas, which negates the HP cost entirely.
• Celibate Hero: Sera is the only party member who isn't interested in romance, something she finds in common with Pirate Queen Contesse.
• Combination Attack: Unlike most games, team skills are upgrades of existing skills and require only one character's turn, making them easier to use than in most games. However, this requires both characters to be alive and free of certain ailments. If these conditions aren't met, the team skill reverts to its weaker base form.
• Crutch Character: In the first battle against Lilith, Freya is at level 8 when everyone else is likely level 3 or 4. She can also draw aggro, which can help keep the other party members alive. The other party members will eventually catch up to her over the course of the story, and in Ambervale, Freya admits that Sera surpassed her. However, she never loses her usefulness as the party's primary tank and defense buffer.
• Cutting the Knot: In the Typh Village sidequest, the party comes across a complicated puzzle that's supposed to get them to a lever. The guest character, Ruthea, simply jumps across the gap to pull the lever, preventing the need to complete the puzzle. However, completing it will still net the party a unique accessory.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Pirate Queen Contesse scams the party out of their money instead of giving them supplies. When they call her out, she then sends them through Eastport's sewers to pick up the supplies she promised, but really to make them clear out the monsters that are inconveniencing the pirates. After the party defeats Contessa, she gives them the supplies and a boat. She states that she had to put them through some tribulations in order to maintain her crew's reputation.
• Defend Command: Played with. All of the main party members have a skill that heals their MP a bit, reduces damage taken for that turn, and buffs them in some way. However, they can be prevented from using that skill if an ailment prevents them from using any skill in general, essentially sealing their ability to defend. Additionally, the guest character Ruthea has no equivalent to the defend command, and instead has a skill that heals more MP than the defensive skills.
• Dracolich: At the top of the Umbralair, Lilith revives Typhus the Worldbreaker as an undead dragon, much like Lissandra did with Typhus the Younger.
• Dragon Rider: During the final boss fight, Lilith rides the undead Typhus as a Call-Back to the True Final Boss of the first game.
• Extra Turn: The accessory, Gambler's Fallacy, allows the wearer to execute two actions per round. As a drawback, the user will be targeted more often, receive less healing, and receive more critical hits.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: Freya appears to be the savior of Katti Town who drives off Lilith. In reality, she's in cahoots with Lilith so that she can play hero while the latter gets to satisfy her boredom.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: Sera and Freya are the tanks of the party, Thomas is the Red Mage who uses offense and healing spells, and Jake is the thief who is fast and can inflict ailments.
• Fission Mailed: In the Typh Village quest, when the player gains control of Ruthea, they can attempt to leave to the world map, causing Ruthea to look dejected and give up on saving the party. The game then gives a game over screen, only for Ruthea to say she was kidding.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Ruthea is temporarily playable during Freya's flashback, the Typh Village quest, and Lilith's final phase.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Inverted. Of the Katti Town trio, Sera is the physical fighter, Thomas is the mage, and Jake is more balanced between physical and magic damage.
• Heel–Face Turn: Violet is a reluctant member of a party of greedy adventurers, who go as far as to try to kill the party for beating them to a dungeon's treasure. After his party's second defeat, Violet leaves the party and is left despondent now that he has no means to pay off his student loans. If the party pays his loans, Violet teaches Freya a powerful support skill. In the ending, he moves to Halonia to open up a restaurant.
• Heel Realization: Downplayed with Lilith. During the final battle, she refuses to take responsibility for attacking Katti Town and betraying Freya's trust, and instead blames Lilith for abandoning her. In the ending, she makes an uneasy peace with Freya and tells the latter to apologize to Sera for her, showing that Lilith feels some remorse over her actions.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Freya believes Lilith will stick to routine in her raids as part of their agreement. She failed to realize that Lilith is too bored and whimsical to care about keeping her word, or that Lilith prioritizes her own amusement above their relationship. This leads to Lilith attacking Katti off-schedule, causing Ethel Kattis to die of a heart attack.
• Jerkass Realization: In the ending, one of the knights apologizes for insulting Freya behind her back about being trans. It's implied that Guinevere's diversity course helped change the knight's mind.
• Lack of Empathy: Lilith cares about nothing but satisfying her own boredom and even when her "lover" Freya calls her out on causing Ethel to have a fatal heart attack, Lilith's response is that Ethel is old and would have died soon anyways. The ending shows that she's slowly learning empathy, since she decides to make peace with Freya and leave Strider with the latter, and she seems to be somewhat remorseful about the sneak attack on Katti Town.
• Locked Out of the Loop: In the May 20 2023 update, there's a new quest where the Cult of Drakon returns as the Drakonites. They seek to revive Typhus by practicing Human Sacrifice and using Freya's ring. However, Lilith never kept in contact with the cult, so they never realized that only she is capable of reviving Typhus and that the bones they gathered were from a random dinosaur.
• Lovable Rogue: Jake is the party's thief and is a bit of a kleptomaniac, but is also fighting to protect Katti from Lilith.
• Luck-Based Mission: The Superboss, Hex Boyfriend, can randomly inflict ailments on the entire party, including charm. This puts the party at the mercy of the RNG, since too many potent ailments could make the battle unwinnable.
• Karma Houdini:
  • In Katti Town, Jameson discusses the concept of justice and retribution when it comes to Gwen from the first game. Since she actually did bewitch Ruth, the latter would have been justified in cutting the former down, Instead, Ruth forgave Gwen, resulting in the latter using her magic and alchemy for the good of Halonia. Jameson concludes that justice doesn't always mean better results in the long run.
  • In the ending, despite her crimes against Belume in the Celestial Hearts and her current crimes against Katti Town, Lilith escapes arrest and resumes her plan to gain enough power to kill her creator.
• Manipulative Bitch: Played with. Lilith turns out to be in a relationship with Freya, but uses this to set up raids where she attacks towns to stave off her boredom while Freya defends them, allowing Freya to feel like a heroine. She also tells Freya that there's no way the latter can come clean to the rest of the party or find acceptance from the rest of society, making Freya completely dependent on the former. However, she does seem to have some genuine affection for Freya and states that what hurt her the most was Freya's rejection, but it's clear that Lilith is too selfish and immature to make the relationship work.
• Nostalgia Level: In Freya's flashback sequence, she and Ruthea explore the Lair of Typhus the Younger, the first dungeon of Knight Bewitched. The boss battle with the Shadowbeast in that dungeon also uses the boss theme of Knight Bewitched.
• Oni: Ibuki is an oni who can be found in the Eastport Buff secret map, and she wields a club in her boss battle. She's friendly to the party, but will not give up her treasure unless they beat her in a non-lethal battle. Afterwards, she'll give advice to the party and can be fought again in rematches.
• Only the Pure of Heart: Methusaleh claims that he'll only allow those who are pure of heart to enter Ambervale. In a twist on this trope, he cares more about the purity of the party's future actions rather than their past actions.
• Pet the Dog: In the ending, Lilith leaves Strider behind in Halonia so that the party can take care of him, since she doesn't want him to get caught up in her quest to kill her creator.
• Red Mage:
  • Thomas is the party's main mage, and can use both offensive and healing spells. He also has the low defenses and HP one would expect of his class.
  • Freya can use thunder magic, healing magic, and physical damage skill, albeit with the stats of a physical tank.
• Rejected Apology: Although Freya apologizes for working with Lilith and promises to help defeat her for real, Sera and most of the people of Katti Town understandably refuse to forgive her. They allow her to use the town's shops until Lilith is defeated, but only because they know that they need her for this task.
• Running Gag: Each town has a spittoon that Sera can examine for items, which grosses the rest of the party out.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Thomas's father is afraid to let Thomas study magic, due to how their ancestor, Morgoth, went insane and tried to wipe out all life on the planet. However, a lategame sidequest confirms that Lilith cursed Morgoth and that his insanity wasn't caused by his magic power.
• Slap-on-the-Wrist Nuke: Parodied. Sera wants Thomas to help her with a skill that can supposedly blow a hole in the moon. Thomas points out that doing so would have repercussions on the entire planet. Fortunately, this is only a very hard-hitting physical attack.
• Took a Level in Cynic: Stray became a king at some point, but became bitter and jaded due to outliving his friends with his elven lifespan.
• Trans Tribulations: Freya was rejected by her parents for transitioning, but found her place in Halonia as a knight. She ended up in a relationship with Ruthea, but the latter outed her, leading to her fellow knights ostracizing her.
• Turned Against Their Masters: Lilith seeks the power of the Exodus sword in order to defeat the evil deity who created her. This is less out of heroic intent and more because she wants revenge for being controlled like a puppet.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Lilith was an endgame boss in previous games in the Knights of Ambrose series, but here, she's the very first boss of the game and can be defeated by a trio of novice fighters and their mentor. This is justified because she threw the fight to make Freya look like a heroine and she lost a lot of the angelic and demonic power she had in previous games. When the party fights her for real as the Final Boss, she's at least on par with the optional bosses in terms of stats.
• Wolfpack Boss: Marcos, Syldren, Romero, and Violet attack the party in Sunderville and later the Frostmines in order to steal their treasure.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Freya reveals that Lilith's sword, Kinslayer, contains Typhus's soul, allowing her to revive him as an undead minion whenever she wants. Lilith didn't kill Typhus, but instead acquired his soul sometime after Ruth's party killed him in Knight Bewitched.