Avenge the unknown. Defeat Celesteal.
"300 years ago, the heroic Star Savior managed to defeat a celestial evil known as Stratosfear, but suddenly vanished without a trace. However, a new evil being named Celesteal has been discovered, and the world is in need of a new Star Savior. You have been summoned by Cyalm, who believes that you are the one who will fill this role. With Cyalm's guidance, you must collect various stars that are scattered about 10 diverse worlds in order to befriend other celestial beings. Your skill, determination and adventurous spirit will be tested. Do you have what it takes to defeat Celesteal and save the world?"
— The game's description
The sequel to Adventure Forward: Star Savior, Adventure Forward 2: Points of Conflict is a platformer created by Explode1 in ROBLOX. The original can be found here
, though is rather glitch filled to play due to the updates ROBLOX has made over the years. Though in 2019, a restored version of the game was developed by roblox8192, fixed up to work under the various updates ROBLOX has released, and also releasing the Bonus Stages for free, with no need for purchases.
Taking place 300 years after the first game, this time around the focus is not only on collecting stars. Each world is home to a celestial being called a Point, which Cyalm has tasked you with gaining the trust of. To do so, you will have to collect however many stars they require, then complete a challenge course, upon which they will grant you their symbol. These symbols are necessary to unlock new areas in Sky Emporium. Before Celesteal, there are 9 worlds, each with their own Point:
- Adventure Grounds, home to Shallare.
- Cavern Club, home to Signol.
- Frosted Snowland, home to Compale.
- Wooden Workshop, home to Ploque.
- Star Sanctuary, home to Anshine.
- Sandbrick Sandbox, home to Ulipse.
- Mad Dragon Festival, home to Arrolin.
- Battery Canyon, home to Mino.
- Distortion Paradise, home to Ixol.
Once the Star Savior has gathered these 9 symbols, they are ready to fight Celesteal. Note that anything that happens beyond this point is a spoiler, and should be marked as such.
In addition to the main story, there are several packs of bonus levels that can be purchased with ROBUX that are unrelated to the plot. However, the requirement to pay for these levels was removed in the Restored version.
In 2020, a third sequel in the Adventure Forward series would truly begin development (After the original release was cut short due to Explode1's termination.) under a new creator and team, and eventually, a demo for Adventure Forward: Crown of Shadows would be released for a few weeks. However, the game was announced to be changed to an entirely different game, Stars Align separate from the Adventure Forward series, marking Points of Conflict as the final game in the series.
This game provides examples of:
- A God Am I: Cyalm claims as much in Shattered Shardscape. Considering that the entire plot thus far is their doing, it's hard to argue.Cyalm: Perhaps you do not yet grasp the true scope of your situation here. You are essentially standing before a god right now.
- Affably Evil: Cyalm does plenty of terrible things for the sake of their "narrative", but Mino notes they're being completely sincere when they claim they care about the Points and want the Star Savior to succeed.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The final world of the main story is Sky Emporium, hijacked and filled with many hazards and traps.
- Ambiguously Evil: Ixol.
- Anti-Frustration Features: The only time checkpoints are featured in a boss fight is Celesteel's, given that due to the length and difficulty of the boss fight, it would be tiring to start the fight all over again.
- Badass Boast: Ixol makes one once the player tries to obtain their symbol.Ixol: You think you're ready for my challenge course, huh?
Star Savior: Yes, I am.
Ixol: No, you're not. - Band Land: Cavern Club.
- Big Bad: Celesteal.
- Big Good: Cyalm. Subverted, as they're actually Celesteal. Anshine more-or-less takes over the role once this is revealed.
- Blunt "Yes": In Shattered Shardscape:Cyalm: I know what you're probably wondering at this point. "Is Cyalm evil?"
Cyalm: Well, here's the simple answer: Yes. - But Thou Must!: Ulipse constantly warns you that they have no interest in giving you their symbol, and that you should just leave. You can't actually progress until you insist on staying.
- Character Development: At first, Ulipse absolutely refuses to give the Star Savior their symbol and warns them repeatedly to leave. Even once you've weakened them enough to get their symbol, they seem far from happy about it. They mellow out considerably once you find them in Sky Emporium.
- Creator Cameo: Explode1 appears to exposit some behind-the-scenes information after you collect all 91 stars available. He's replaced with a trollface in the remastered version.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Ulipse has a shadow theme, and while they are fairly aggressive, they're still well-intentioned.
- Remember Stratosfear? Turns out Cyalm made them that way. They prove to be on your side once you free them from Cyalm's control.
- Defeat Means Friendship: 3 of the Points (Compale, Ulipse, and Ixol) won't be content with simply throwing a challenge course at you. Once you defeat them in a Boss Battle, however, they're firmly on your side.
- Eldritch Location: Distortion Paradise. For starters, the location to the world itself is located far, far below Sky Emporium. Then there's the fact that the world is full of Ominous Visual Glitches. To top it all off, the bottom of this world isn't water or earth, but an abyss containing some Floating Platforms and an upside-down castle.
- Eternal Engine: Battery Canyon.
- Even Evil Has Standards: More or less Ixol's opinion on Cyalm.
- arEast: Mad Dragon Festival.
- Floating Continent: Both Sky Emporium and Star Sanctuary are examples of this.
- Fluffy Cloud Heaven: Star Sanctuary. While not a literal afterlife, it's still a floating city with angels, marble buildings, and plenty of clouds, and is stated to run off of Star Power.
- Foil: Cyalm and Stratosfear, from the first game. On the surface, Stratosfear is the Big Bad of the first game, while Cyalm is the Big Good of the second. However, at the end it's revealed that Stratosfear was actually The Hero of the first game, with Cyalm being The Man Behind the Man in the first game and the Big Bad in the second. Cyalm is white and Heavenly Blue, while Stratosfear is Red and Black and Evil All Over. Cyalm is the first Point you meet, and Stratosfear is one of the last. Overall, Cyalm embodies Light Is Not Good and Stratosfear embodies Dark Is Not Evil.
- Foreshadowing: Star Sanctuary is full of this, being the only world that develops the plot between the initial premise and the final confrontation. Namely, none of the inhabitants have ever heard of Celesteal before, hinting at Cyalm's true nature, while the Temple of Shadows and a couple of other snippets of dialogue hint at the fact that Stratosfear was once the original Star Savior.
- Fusion Dance: Played with regarding Celesteal. Cyalm returns to this form by merging their symbol with Stratosfear's. However, Celesteal is actually their original self, so it would be more accurate to say that Cyalm and Stratosfear are an inverted version that ends when Cyalm takes Stratosfear's symbol back.
- Gate Guardian: Yawgate was this for Cyalm's pocket dimensions. Emphasis on was, as by the time you find them Cyalm is dead and they have no real reason to continue guarding them.
- The Generic Guy: Shallare and Ploque both lack distinctive personalities.
- Gimmick Level: Almost all of the pocket dimensions have a unique gimmick. Yawgate's dimension consists of a long strip of narrow speeding platforms, Morward's and Pasless's dimensions have a series of stages where the actual layout of the level is only seen ahead and behind the player, respectively, while Voixer's dimension consists of a series of buttons that, when pressed, show an otherwise-invisible set of platforms for a fraction of a second.
- Green Hill Zone: Adventure Grounds.
- Hailfire Peaks: Multiple examples:
- Adventure Grounds, for the most part is a Green Hill Zone; however, there's enough machinery in it to give it an Eternal Engine subtheme. It also has elements of a Level in the Clouds.
- Cavern Club is both Band Land and an Underground Level.
- While Battery Canyon is mostly an Eternal Engine, as the name implies, it happens to take place in a canyon.
- Distortion Paradise, in addition to being Palmtree Panic, also has a volcano, and also acts as an Eldritch Location due to the glitch theme.
- Hearing Voices: In the lead-up to Shattered Shardscape, it's shown that Ixol has friends, and this is how they interact with them. Apparently they're actually beings from higher planes.
- Heavenly Blue: Cyalm.
- Heroic BSoD: Ixol goes into a violent breakdown about Cyalm killing their friends in their mind. Seeing it gives off a lot of
Nightmare Fuel for some players.Ixol: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!! GET AWAY FROM ME!!!!! THE VOICES!!!! ARE SCREAMING IN AGONY!!!!! CYALM… IS KILLING THEM… THEY’RE KILLING MY FRIENDS!!!!!. - Hub Level: Sky Emporium.
- Humanoid Abomination: In the post-game scenario, Yawgate warns you near the start that some of Celesteal's experimental Points are difficult to comprehend. Sure enough, you end up running into Points that are the manifestations of the abstract concepts of the future, the past, and nothingness.
- I'm Your Worst Nightmare: How Ixol introduces themselves - or, rather, Distortion Paradise as a whole.Ixol: Hey there! Welcome to your worst nightmare! If you want your nightmare to get WAY worse, just collect 33 stars and talk to me again!
- Interface Spoiler: Should you be in the same server as another player, you can see how many stars and symbols they have via the scoreboard in the upper-right corner of the screen. As such, you may notice that some players may have up to 16 symbols...
- Kick the Dog: In case the player wasn't sold on Cyalm being evil, they slaughter Ixol's friends shortly before the final level for supposedly getting in the way.
- Last Lousy Point: Since the amount of red coins per world has doubled from 8 to 16 compared to the first game, it's almost a given that you'll run into this in later worlds.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Before the final battle, Cyalm claims the other Points are simply characters in their "narrative". This is what convinces most of said Points that they've gone completely mad.
- Light Is Not Good: Both Cyalm and Celesteal are associated with very light colors despite being evil, and Shattered Shardscape itself is very bright and shiny to reflect this.
- Locked Out of the Loop: In Shattered Shardscape, Arrolin is the only Point who never really figures out what's going on.
- Lumber Mill Mayhem: Wooden Workshop.
- Minimalism: The Points' character designs. Generally, they're humanoids whose body consists of one solid color (occasionally a gradient) and a symbol for a face. Needless to say, they aren't very detailed.
- Motif Merger: Celesteal's symbol is a combination of Stratosfear's red X and Cyalm's 6-pointed star.
- Motifs: Each Point has a symbol associated with them. These symbols are both more-or-less the points' faces and the main Plot Coupons of the game.
- Cyalm has a cyan 6-pointed star.
- Solgon has a dark red quadrilateral, reminiscent of Triangle Shades.
- Naen has a dark green 6-pointed star, rotated 90 degrees to distinguish it from Cyalm's.
- Shallare has an orange 3-pointed star.
- Signol has a magenta lens, oriented vertically.
- Compale has a white 8-pointed star.
- Ploque has a yellow-orange 4-pointed star.
- Anshine has a bright yellow 5-pointed star.
- Ulipse has a purple crescent, facing downwards.
- Arrolin has the same shape as Solgon, but bright green and pointing upwards.
- Mino has a blue lens, oriented horizontally.
- Ixol has a black crescent, facing upwards.
- Stratosfear has a red X, as they did in the first game.
- Celesteal has Stratosfear's red X overlaid on Cyalm's 6-pointed star.
- Yawgate has a yellow-green 3-pointed star, flipped 180 degrees to distinguish it from Shallare's.
- Morward has a cyan arrow pointing to the right.
- Pasless has a purple arrow pointing to the left.
- Voixer has a dark blue X, which changes to a 6-pointed star like Cyalm's once they try to fight the player.
- Mr. Exposition: Two kinds: Cyalm establishes the plot and gives the player direction, while Solgon and their Tutorial Center delve into the nitty-gritty of game mechanics.
- No Biological Sex:
Word of God has confirmed that every Point is agender. Makes sense, considering they're not really human. - No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: In one of the more surreal moments leading up to Shattered Shardscape, Cyalm hosts a tea party with the player, Anshine, and Stratosfear. It doesn't last very long.
- Nostalgia Level: Star Sanctuary is a downplayed example. At first glance, it's hardly recognizable as Maytown. However, the Tower of Time stands where the Clocktower used to be. Additionally, both the Robotic Ruins and the Temple of Kings are located near where the entrances to Vintage Voltage and Pharaoh Falls were, and those areas use the same powerups introduced in those levels (the Battery and the Dash Pepper, respectively). Also, in the postgame scenario, Stratosfear's pocket dimension will doubtless prove familiar for anyone who played Shadows in the Sky.
- Not Quite Dead: This is the setup for the post-game scenario: Cyalm/Celesteal should be dead, but the Points find a forcefield that's of their design, meaning some trace of their essence must still be around somewhere.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: Distortion Paradise is full of these, to the point where they're the most prominent of its many lethal hazards. Also associated with Ixol in general.
- The lead-in to Shattered Shardscape, as well as the level itself, includes a motif of "Please Stand By" signs to reflect Cyalm warping reality in the Sky Emporium. They block off certain passages in the level, and the player multiple times gets warped into empty rooms covered with these signs as the area is changed.
- Our Angels Are Different: Star Sanctuary's citizens are all clad in stereotypical angel outfits, and one of them is even named Angel. However, by all accounts they seem to be normal humans who've achieved enlightenment thanks to Star Power.
- Out of Focus: Shallare, Signol, Ploque, and Arrolin all contribute little to the plot.
- Painting the Fourth Wall: Ixol shifts to talking in all capital letters, with a space in between each letter, on more than one occasion. For example, their line just before their boss battle starts:Ixol: K N E E L.
- Palmtree Panic: Distortion Paradise. Rather unusually, it's encountered very late in the game and is rather difficult.
- Paradox Person: Appears to be the case with Voixer, a Point somehow conceived from nothing. It's actually a subversion, however, as they're partially a remnant of Celesteal.
- Plot Coupon: The stars, as in the original.
- Power of the Void: Voixer. Deconstructed as they quickly realize that an entity embodying nothing does not make sense, and they're actually the last remnant of Celesteal.
- Power-Up: Just like the last game, power ups are used to traverse the world. The Forcefield has been scrapped though.
- Shooting Star: Exclusive to boss battles, the Shooting Star allows you to shoot bursts of star bullets at enemies using the mouse akin to a shooter game.
- Marble: Encases you in a giant marble. Unlike other power ups the Marble doesn't have a time limit, rather it's limited to certain parts of the world that can't be passed by foot. You're not invincible either so don't think you can bulldoze through obstacles.
- Saw: The Saw allows you grind through slits on the walls at fast speed, indicated by small yellow arrows. This power up notably has a very short time limit, so you don't want it to wear off while in the middle of a grind. And just like its description says, it's not a weapon so no melee combat.
- Dash Pepper: Just like the last game, the Dash Pepper grants you Super-Speed and allows you to make long jumps. It also allows you to walk on checkered ramps that will trip you otherwise.
- Battery: Also returning from the first game, the Battery enables you to collect electric charge from orbs which can be used to charge broken wires. This can affect a variety of things so keep an eye out on the course.
- Rocket: Exclusive to the Alpha Base Bonus Level, the Rocket grants you temporary vertical flight required to reach platforms that are way out of reach.
- Power-Up Food: The Dash Pepper, which provides Super-Speed.
- Previous Player-Character Cameo: Since Stratosfear is really the protagonist of the first game, their appearance counts as this.
- Speak of the Devil: Ploque uses this term by name when the Points decide to try to take down Cyalm, only for Cyalm to just then enter the room.
- Super-Speed: The Dash Pepper power-up, used at least once in every world starting with Wooden Workshop. It also allows the player to climb slopes that would otherwise be steep enough to trip them.
- Theme Naming: The inhabitants of Star Sanctuary are all named after either different kinds of weather (Rain, Hail, Snow, Stormy), or other things associated with the heavens (Sky, Cloud, Angel).
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Shattered Shardscape for the main story. After collecting 55 stars (the exact amount that can be collected across all the non-bonus levels), you gain access to Ascension, in 5 Parts, which acts as this for the postgame scenario (if you count individual "parts," Voixer's section qualifies as this).
- Final Firestorm for the bonus levels (ignoring that it can be played at any time after it's purchased). Fittingly, its description notes that it was the original concept for the actual final level.
- Final Firestorm for the bonus levels (ignoring that it can be played at any time after it's purchased). Fittingly, its description notes that it was
- Threshold Guardian: All of the 9 Points you get a symbol from can count as this, though some are better examples than others.
- Time Skip: Takes place 300 years after the first game. This is most likely meant to justify Maytown turning into Star Sanctuary in the interim.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: The Marble power-up allows for sections of the game that more closely resemble Super Monkey Ball than traditional platformers.
- The Unfought: Most of the Points never act as boss battles; the only ones that do are Compale, Ulipse, Ixol, and Cyalm/Celesteal. This trope is most apparent with Voixer. At the end of the post-game scenario, they decide they want to fight the second Star Savior. However, once they realize that the only reason a paradoxical being like them could manifest in the first place was because they're partially a remnant of Celesteal, they decide to peacefully let their essence dissipate instead. Lampshaded:
- Voixer: I am sorry. I know you were expecting some kind of fearless battle against me, but I cannot provide that for you after discovering my true form.
- Updated Re-release: Adventure Forward 2: Points of Conflict Restored is an updated version of the game, made to fit Roblox's recent updates. It removes the requirement to purchase the bonus stages, letting the players enjoy them at their own leisure.
- Walking Spoiler: Celesteal. And, by extension, Cyalm. Stratosfear as well, since while their status as the first Star Savior was revealed at the end of the first game, the fact that they show up in-person and Cyalm was responsible for their fate makes them one. All the Points encountered in the post-game scenario, namely Yawgate, Morward, Pasless, and Voixer, also qualify.
- Warm-Up Boss: Compale serves as the first example of a boss battle, and one the player is unlikely to die to. Justified, as unlike later bosses Compale has no real malice towards the Star Savior.
- Was Once a Man: Ulipse claims this is true of all of the Points, once you find them in Sky Emporium. Cyalm confirms this is the case in Shattered Shardscape.
- Wham Line: Ixol delivers one next to the door leading to the Final Boss:Ixol: Looks like someone left this door open. I wonder what lies beyond it...?
Ixol: Haha, just kidding. I know it's you, Cyalm. - Where It All Began: Most of the final world, Shattered Shardscape, is a Remixed Level of Sky Emporium.
- White Void Room: This is where you find Celesteal's symbol.
- "...But despite the hopelessness of my situation, I still had hope. I think that... No matter how hopeless the future may seem, there's always the possibility that you'll be given a second chance."
