Video Game / Afterimage

Afterimage is a fantasy Action RPG Metroidvania developed by Chinese-based Aurogon Shanghai and published by Modus Games. It was funded through a campaign on Kickstarter and released in April 25, 2023 on PC via Steam, and on the PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox One & X|S, and Nintendo Switch consoles.

Engardin is a world scarred by rebellion. Its nurturing Goliaths were slaughtered, cut down by humans mad with greed. The Well of Mankind, vital to reincarnation, was shattered. Now restless dead stalk its fields, and even a person's very soul can be yanked from their body.

Many humans are struggling to survive in the wake of "the Razing". Renee, an amnesiac exorcist, is one of them. But when she finds her home destroyed, she is drawn into a quest about more than survival... a quest that will decide the fate of all Engardin.

The game features a vibrant hand-drawn art style, dubbed voice acting, and a core gameplay emphasis on Role-Playing Game mechanics allowing potentially diverse character builds. Bits of Souls-like RPG elements are also sprinkled in, primarily with the risk of losing Experience Points upon dying and having to reclaim them from where you died. And unlike many Metroidvania games whose level designs involve transitioning between rooms, the areas of Afterimage are almost entirely seamless, with progression also being non-linear for most of the time.

Post-launch, Afterimage has received some free major content updates on top of its quality-of-life patches:

• Trial of Soul (June 30, 2023) – A separate mode which focuses on a gauntlet of boss fights, and rewards three new unlockable outfits for Renee.
• Trio in the Sea (December 15, 2023) – An update which adds two new playable characters in the Trial of Soul mode; Karsa and 42.

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This game contains the following tropes:

• Ability Required to Proceed:
  • Typical for a Metroidvania, you need to acquire new movement upgrades to reach new platforms or places you couldn't do so at first.
  • Some Afterimage abilities lean more on the lore or story than a gameplay perspective, but still help you reach new areas, either directly or indirectly. For example, Renee can learn the ability to "invade Soulfields" of people or entities, which are then presented as additional stages, or even boss arenas.
• Achievement System: Accomplishing specific in-game milestones rewards you with achievements or trophies. These can be viewed in the pause menu.
• Action Bomb: The game has several creatures that explode upon being defeated (such as Explosive Meowlings and Hideous Pimplelings), though their damage, and the delay between their death animation and explosion vary.
• Adjective Noun Fred: Major bosses tend to have ", the [Description]" appended to them such as Loss, the Broken Wings.
• Affectionate Nickname: Ifree sometimes calls Renee as "Ree" because they're True Companions. It also helps distinguish a light, heartwarming conversation from a more serious tone where Ifree calls Renee's name as-is.
• After-Combat Recovery: Boss fights and scripted inescapable ambush sequences may be rather hard and/or lengthy, so the game would just kindly refill your HP bar if you successfully defeat all of the spawned enemies.
• Alternate Self: The Flavor Text of most outfits imply the existence of Renee's "other selves" in an alternate world. Some of these outfits are references to other video game characters, however.
  A brand new cloak that shares the exact same style as the one worn by a certain girl with amnesia. It almost feels like it belongs to her other self in an alternate world. Perhaps you could try it on?
• Amnesiac Hero: Renee herself.
• Anchors Away: "The Survived" is a ship's anchor obtained from a floating wreckage. Renee can wield it like a scythe.
• Animesque: Afterimage is a Chinese-made game, but with an anime art style, best seen in promotional material and in the designs of characters such as Renee.
• Anthropomorphic Food: Grapelings and Maizlings are living creatures derived from food, specifically grapes and corn, as their appearances and the wordplay on their names imply. Fittingly, the Grapelings throw grape projectiles at you, and both of the aforementioned creatures may randomly drop the expected food ingredients.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Fetch quests retroactively consider items that you already have in your inventory, allowing them to be completed automatically after accepting them instead of requring you to collect a new amount from scratch.
  • The game remembers if you've opened a treasure chest but have not picked up the item yet, ensuring that nothing inside them is permanently lost. You can just simply return after some time (especially after getting a new movement upgrade), but the item is still there. For what it's worth, one specific map marker that you can manually place as a reminder is a treasure chest icon.
  • Even if you lose your current EXP bar upon dying, your actual Character Level does not decrease no matter how many times you die.
  • You can only sell spares or duplicates of an equipment (weapon, armor, or accessory) ensuring that at least one copy of each unique equipment remains in your inventory. For a good reason, this prevents the "Gate of Babylon" achievement (which requires collecting all weapons and armor) and the "Se's Apprentice" achievement (which requires collecting all accessories) from being permanently unobtainable.
  • The Trial of Soul update introduced new exploration-related quality-of-life features that reduce Guide Dang It! situations, mostly by adding map icons for merchants, conjurors, or NPCs involved in long quest chains. It also added a red mask icon for enemies that are way above Renee's Character Level, which, stat-wise, helps in distinguishing between enemies that can be comfortably fought, from the beef gates.
  • The Trial of Soul mode is a Boss Game separate from the main story mode. Although several quality-of-life features are carried over from the main mode, this one has its own additional QoL to help on its replayability.
    • This mode has its own save file separate from the main story mode, so as not to risk corrupting or overwriting your main story data. However, any progress you make in the Trial of Soul mode is persistent (for example, your equipment loadout is being saved, so you don't have to constantly begin with Renee's Starter Equipment). There's still an option to reset your entire Trial of Soul data, though.
    • Dying in the mode respawns you to the same spot before you challenged the boss or entered the portal, saving time if you want to quickly challenge the boss again in the same gaming session. Exiting the mode respawns you back to the starting point, however.
• Arc Words:
  • "May our paths cross soon once again." - A recurring farewell message to a dead person. Appropriately, it's also the description of the "Condolence" achievement.
  • "Engardin razed" – On a surface level, it refers to the "Razing" incident that affected the world of Engardin, but several characters (including Renee and Ifree) use the phrase to express utter disbelief or shock at someone or something. It's just like this game's version of saying "What in the world!?"
• Artificial Brilliance: Pale Fighters mostly attack with a two-hit punch combo, but they can quickly switch directions in the middle of their combo if you jump or cross over them. What's also worth noting is that they can do such gimmicks, yet Renee (and the player) doesn't have such gameplay mechanic of being able to switch attack directions while moving.
• Asteroids Monster:
  • Defeating a Gear Shark causes it to burst into multiple small Sharklings.
  • Scorchwhere features a type of creatures that split or spawn into their weaker counterparts (on top of exploding) upon death. One dead Pyro Slenderer spawns two Pyro Shadows; and one dead Pyro Shadow spawns two Pyro Shades.
• Autosave: As indicated by a triangular emblem on the bottom right of the screen, the game autosaves whenever you pick up items from chests, obtain rare collectibles, or unlock achievements. It also autosaves whenever you return to the title screen, though that's more of a quality-of-life feature.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Engardin may be a global example. Regardless of the narrative, it's a lush, colourful world where even villagers wear flowing robes and long ponytails.
• Beef Gate: It's easily possible to access Goliathfall (a relatively end-game biome) from the Rainbow Plains (an early-game biome) via an elevator ride. The game even tricks the player into thinking that this ominously dark dungeon is an early-game area as there are low-level Hollow Archers and Hollow Warriors nearby. However, there is an Unsheather Hollow in the open, a speedy Elite Mook that can effortlessly One-Hit Kill a beginner's Renee. Unlocking the Beastiary reveals that the Unsheather is at least 60 levels higher than the Archers and Warriors. The Trial of Soul update later added a quality-of-life icon feature that easily helps in identifying beef gate enemies, including this Unsheather Hollow.
• BFS:
  • Renee can equip Greatsword-type weapons which deal sufficient damage but are slow. Rarer and stat-wise better greatswords tend to have wider or more intricate blade designs.
  • The greatswords of Judicator Knights are wide and huge, they regularly rest their Blade Across The Shoulder if they're not attacking you.
• Black Box: Among the three artifacts stored in the Grand Archives of the Holy Grounds, the Primeval Orb is considered the strongest (allowing humans to see a projection of the Sea of Souls), but it is also the "most mysterious", not even the Mastermage Levine can understand its material composition. One In-Universe speculation from the mastermages claim that it might be an instrument made by God.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The game is originally in Chinese and had to be translated to other languages such as English. However, the English translation is far from perfect; there appears to be inconsistent spellings (for example, a boss is named "Souless Ode", yet Echo 6 uses the spelling "soulless"), wordplays that were lost due to misspellings (The plant creatures named "Laternlings" having lantern body parts), inconsistency with word choices or pronouns (Echo A begins with "That red-haired guy was out of her mind", even though the subject is later referred to with female pronouns), or outright typos (Echo 12 has the word "travellling", with three Ls), etc.
• Bonus Feature Failure: Much like how it was done with the "secret" additional playable characters of the Castlevania games (and even its successor Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night), you could play as 42 or Karsa in the Trial of Soul mode after the Trio in the Sea update (though 42 is also playable in the ten "New Game Plus" chapters beforehand). However, 42 and Karsa have very limited movesets, no access to equipment, consumable items, Talent trees, or equippable Afterimages. At the very least, they're already at Level 99, with sufficient HP, MP, and Primeval Glyph upgrades.
• Boring, but Practical: The Pyro Cape Afterimage wraps Renee with a flaming barrier that periodically deals Pyro damage to nearby enemies. It's a passive mechanic, but you can't go wrong with a passive source of damage during fights.
• Boss Game: After a content update, beating the boss of Rainbow Plains unlocks a separate "Trial of Soul" mode wherein you can challenge bosses and unlock new outfits for Renee upon completing specific milestones. The data of this mode is separate from the main story mode, and the necessary upgrades, talents, and equipment are already maxed out, unlocked, or available from the pause menu. You can choose to fight individual bosses, or enter portals that initiate boss fights back-to-back like a typical Boss Rush sequence.
• Bow and Sword in Accord: Templar Knights can switch between a bow or a sword to attack you depending on your distance from them.
• Bullfight Boss: Given that it's a creature resembling a bull, Lava Horns has an attack where it charges straight towards Renee's direction.
• Button Mashing: Encouraged by the "Anemoslash" gameplay mechanic of the Anemogrim blade weapon. One tap of the attack button simply creates a few slash arcs, but the lack of an actual attack animation from Renee makes it a Spam Attack that's more reliable if the attack button is repeatedly tapped.
• Call-Back: Ifree remembers the hooded figure's early warning (about being wary of those who look like Renee) when the player discovers a blue doppelganger of Renee in the Whispering Forest.
• Cap: Most items are capped at 999 each in your inventory, though some consumables have smaller caps, such as Tree Radish Meat Stew being limited to a maximum of 5.
• Chekhov's Gun: In your early-to-midgame adventure across Engardin's open biomes, you may come across precious items called "Se's Coins" long before you could meet Se (the fairy mentioned in their Flavor Text) whom you are supposed to give these coins to.
• Chekhov's Gunman: You'll find Echoes or notes of a blue-haired girl mentioning another Renee, or that the blue-haired girl declares herself not Renee, but Avisia. Not only do these foreshadow the existence of other Renee "clones", our protagonist duo eventually spot a blue-haired Identical Stranger of Renee in the Whispering Forest, and "The Essential" ending sees her return (as Avisia) saving the playable Renee from the red-haired Renee.
• Chest Monster:
  • Later areas have Mimics, hostile creatures disguised as treasure chests which will reveal their true forms after being attacked.
  • Mimic Fungus look like the ordinary mushroom springboards that you can jump on at first, but making contact with them causes them to spring up and attack you.
• Church Militant: Appropriately, the Holy Grounds have guards named "Templar Knight", adorned with a full-body armor, a cape, and armed with swords and bows.
• Clockworks Area: Albedo Tower is full of mechanisms operating via gears and clockworks, some of which activate and open up new paths or teleportation machines only after specific switches are hit. A section also has razor-edged gears as a part of a Platform Hell puzzle.
• Clones Are People, Too: Of the Renee clones seen in the game, only Red Renee is still following her purpose. The others want nothing to do with her. This is covered by some Echoes of the blue-haired Renee. As she defies the red-haired Renee from absorbing her soul, she even outright declares "Even if I WAS once part of that Renee, I'm no other than myself now... I'm not Renee, I am Avisia!"
• Collection Sidequest: The "Words of Shenlong" sidequest from the fairy Se requires you to find all Shenlong Glyphs all over Engardin, and then return to her.
• Collision Damage: The playable character takes damage upon making contact with enemies. However, there are few or specific instances where this is disabled, such as when you read Echoes in the environment.
• Color-Coded Elements: The damage numbers of elements are color-coded, such as brown for Geo, blue for Hydro, pink for Pyro, cyan for Anemo, yellow for Lux, and purple for Soul. By contrast, Physical damage is plain white.
• Color-Coded Item Tiers: Item pick-ups have color-coded "pillars" of light depending on their rarity or importance. From ascending order, the game uses white, green, blue, purple, and orange.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The equippable Treasurescope of Se Afterimage indicates the currently-acquired and total number of collectibes within a given biome. If you've already found every valuable item in that area, its numbers will be colored bright green; otherwise, it will be pale yellow.
• Company Cameo: A secret late-game sword that you can obtain is named Aurogon, in reference to this game's developer, Aurogon Shanghai.
• Completion Meter: Every biome or individual map region has its own percent-based completion tracker that increases the more you fill up the map by exploring.
• Continuing is Painful: Dying depletes your current EXP bar and respawns Renee to the previously-visited save point. You'll have to return to the spot where you died to reclaim the leftover Experience Points; otherwise they'll be permanently lost if you died again without reclaiming them first. On the other hand...
  • Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: You only go down to the start of your current level, which means that you're never that far behind, particularly if you're willing to XP farm elsewhere.
• Continuity Nod: NPCs may acknowledge Renee's progress from previously-completed biomes, such as Patt and Ethan realizing her having already visited the Town of the Exiled. Their next dialogue lines inquire her about what happened to the town or the people who lived there.
• Cooking Mechanics: Gathering the required ingredients for Alice's "Delicacy" quest unlocks the gameplay mechanic of letting her cook meals for you, as long as you have the specific food ingredients and necessary amounts of Dew. As you explore more of the world, you'll encounter more NPCs such as Emily, Doro and Mia who'll cook additional dishes for you.
• Critical Hit: A critical hit deals increased damage, and is indicated by the damage number being colored red (instead of the usual white). Some Talent nodes and equippable gear boost Renee's critical hit chance and damage. Playable 42 and Karsa can randomly deal critical hits as well, though their chance and damage values can't be determined due to their lack of a Talent interface.
• Deader than Dead: Reincarnation used to be the rule in Engardin, but after the Razing, it was replaced by permanent death. (Odes can sort of respawn themselves, but they remain in their original body.)
• Deadly Droplets: Laternlings are plant-like creatures that hang from ceilings and spew poison droplets directly below them, damaging you upon contact.
• Divine Punishment: The aftermath of "The Razing" is implied to be a punishment from God, as mentioned in some texts or dialogue lines such as when Ripe suggests Renee to travel to the Teardrop.
  Ripe: We still cannot divine the reason for such a calamity even today. Mayhaps it is God's punishment meant for humans...
• Diving Kick: Renee can unlock a downkick move with the Plate of Kingworm Afterimage. The kick is strong enough to break crumbling floors, making it function as an Ability Required to Proceed. It can be enhanced with flaming properties via the Flamewalker's Boots Afterimage, which also lets Renee's feet resist damage from some fire-elemental enemies when bouncing off their heads. 42 and Karsa also have this mechanic in their playable versions.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": The blue-haired Renee clone doesn't want to be called "Renee"; an Echo of hers has her declare she's "Avisia". Her preferred name is appropriately used by the interface when she appears to save our protagonist in "The Essential" ending.
• Door to Before: Another Metroidvania staple. You may unlock shortcuts to previously-visited areas by exploring enough of the map to discover interconnected paths, and breaking some obstacles that block your way out.
• Double Jump: The Left-wing Feather of Windwalker Afterimage allows Renee to double jump, apart from unlocking a downkick attack. It will eventually be replaced and upgraded by the Right-wing Feather of Windwalker which allows a triple jump. Playable 42 and Karsa have the triple jump mechanic as well by default, though Karsa's third jump has a unique "rolling" animation unlike the standard animation used by Renee and 42.
• Double Unlock: Secret Art scrolls must be found in order to reveal the strongest weapon skills of each weapon type, but you'll also need the appropriate amount of Talent Points to unlock those skills from the Talent web.
• Down the Drain: The Columns area is a sewer level, complete with water-based creatures. According to the backstory, it's an aqueduct system that was built to lead the abundant waters of the Emerald Falls directly to the royal city.
• Dual Wielding:
  • Dualblades are pairs of daggers that can be dual-wielded by Renee.
  • Outcasts and Sheatheless Hollows dual-wield daggers.
• Due to the Dead: Mages have a duty of refining the prism bones of corpses to prevent such corpses from turning into re-animated husks called Wanderers. The bones are then placed at a cemetery to honor the dead. One of the first quests likewise tasks Renee to place a prism bone at the cemetery of the Resting Grounds. The Arc Words "May our paths cross soon once again" is also often said as a farewell to the dead. Inversely, necromancy also exists within the setting, and those that forcibly turn the dead bodies into controllable Wanderers are labeled as "exotic fanatics".
• Dungeon Shop:
  • After you give a way out for Tark, who was previously trapped in the Field of Geo, he will offer to sell you some goods right then and there. He'll move to the Resting Town afterwards, however.
  • Town of the Exiled is not a safe place as it's teeming with hostile ghosts everywhere. However, Stanley has occupied a building there for his own services, and you can buy items from him.
• Easter Egg:
  • Some "special" Echoes look like dark blue glitched-out blocks to differentiate them from the normal lore-relevant Echoes. They're mostly found in well-hidden spots and instead contain notes from people involved in the game, like personal messages left behind by a developer or backer. In the pause menu tab, they're listed last in the bottom of the lore-relevant Echoes.
  • "The Wall" ending is not just an entire reference to The Matrix, it also takes a lot of effort to achieve it in the first place (completing the "Words of Shenlong" sidequest is just a prerequisite), and one of its final requirements involves staying in the Misty Waters within a given period of time, then reversing the boat's course, something that's not easily obvious. What you'd also get for your efforts are implications that Renee is transported to another world, a new outfit, and a new weapon.
• Easy Amnesia: Renee is an amnesiac as a result of linking her soul with a former Demigod.
• Elaborate Equals Effective: Early-game weapons generally have bland or simple designs (in fact, the first weapons that you can pick up for every weapon type are made of wood, look basic, and offer no substats). Rarer weapons usually have higher attack, more stats, and more intricate, or fancier designs. However, this can also be zig-zagged depending on the weapon comparison. For example, Deathmatch is a Blade weapon with the highest Attack stat (165) within its weapon type, but it looks like a standard Japanese katana with a brown scabbard compared to the more sinister and fantastical-looking blades that are a tier directly below it (with 160 Attack), such as the Bloodbath, or the Heart of Sun.
• Eldritch Abomination: Whispering Forest is full of eldritch creatures brought upon by experimentation. They're mostly grouped with the "Hideous" descriptor in the Beastiary, and such creatures usually feature huge eyeballs, several eyes, tentacles (Walker, Creeper, Guard, Researcher), or are straight-up botanical abominations (Blossom, Sufferer, Pimpleling). One boss in the Whispering Forest is even appropriately named "Gongor, the Eldritch Fusion".
• Elemental Motifs: Afterimage revolves around water and things related to it. The worldbuilding includes Fictional Currency in the form of "Dews", the concept of souls, reincarnation and the afterlife involve "Streams" and the "Well of Mankind", Healing Checkpoints (where Renee respawns in after dying) are called "Confluences", etc. Visually, the game's interface is mostly blue-themed, the menu backgrounds also use underwater scenes, while some HUD elements (such as the EXP gauge) are shaped like teardrops.
• Elemental Weapon: Renee can obtain and equip weapons that are innately aligned to a specific Elemental Power, though at varying degrees on how obvious they have it. Depending on the green gameplay tooltip, the weapon may have its elemental affinty from the get-go, or you may have to upgrade it first.
• Enemy Summoner: Sporeling Nests, as their name implies, can create several Sporelings to attack you.
• Equipment Upgrade: Main weapons and Subweapons that are currently equipped can be upgraded at any time using Balms and the necessary amounts of Dew, for up to three levels each (denoted by a color-coded flame icon). Every upgrade level increases all of the weapon's listed stats, though the more "unique" weapons may also unlock additional effects as indicated below their names.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: Everything attacks Renee, whether they're puffy blue birds the size of her fist or the fantasy equivalent of a toad.
• Experience Booster: Some accessories (such as the Adventurer's Bracelet), outfits, armor pieces, or Talent nodes (such as Wisp of Wealth) boost your Experience Gain rate by a given percentage.
• Fairy Sexy: Se is a female fairy with bare, revealing neckline, shoulders, and legs.
• Fake Difficulty: Enemies may be obscured by foreground objects, making it harder to anticipate their attacks compared to when you would lure them to a more "open" space.
• Famed In-Story: The Hermit is known in tales as a talentless man who became a great adventurer. Though his story was believed as merely a fairy tale, an adventurer named Karsa wants to find the Hermit's relic to prove that the myths are true.
• Fictional Currency: Being a fantasy game, Afterimage has its fictional currency in the form of "Dews", as in tiny drops of water that can be harvested from desposits, or dropped by strong creatures. The shopkeeper Tark even discusses the value of some objects (like a rock) in Dews when you meet him for the first time.
• Field of Blades: In Goliathfall, the boss arena where you fight Reaping Scythe, the Crimson Hollow is a desert with dozens of weapons impaled in the background and the foreground.
• Fiery Salamander: As it's already obvious with its name, a Lava Salamander is a flaming, Pyro-elemental red salamander with additional spikes on its body.
• Fighting Your Friend:
  • Due to the recurring misunderstandings, Renee would end up fighting 42 (as her Unstoppable Devil form) in the Forest Foregone, and 42 would fatally wound Renee enough to send her back to revive at the nearest Confluence. However, it's later clarified that 42 is an ally who has her own personal agenda and didn't want Renee to interfere. Aros also vouches for 42's innocence, clearing up any lingering doubts from Reene and Ifree.
  • Renee fights Ifree on the lead-up to "The Hope" ending, as Renee (and by extension, the player) chooses to destroy the egg itself instead of following Ifree's plea of calming down the souls inside the egg first.
• Fireballs:
  • The first tome that you receive, Book of Pyro, allows Renee to learn the "Fireball" spell which launches a fireball projectile forward.
  • Some Pyro-aligned enemies can also launch fireballs in differing ways; Pyromasters can create fireballs that split into three, while Lava Scorchlings can spit fireballs that gradually increase in size as they bounce.
• First Town: Resting Town is the first safe village you visit, making it the game's primary hub zone. As you meet most NPCs while exploring, they'll eventually move to this town. The adventurer Karsa (according to his thoughts recorded in Echo 5) also calls the village as a "Newbie Village".
• Flash of Pain:
  • Damaging an enemy causes its model to briefly flash white. Critical Hits produce red flashes instead.
  • The playable character's model flashes red whenever they take damage, and it's always accompanied with a Hit Stop effect.
• Flavor Text: Equippable gear, collectibles and items may have additional (and color-coded) paragraphs below their name or stats that simply provide some worldbuilding and lore.
• Forced Level-Grinding: Renee may need to be at least in a specific level to unlock further upgrades on her Talent tree. The "Radiance" sidequest subtly needs a high level as well; one of the triggers to progress the quest requires the player to have accumulated or spent a lot of points in the Talent tree.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The Flavor Text of Renee's default "0000" outfit says that it "looks like some kind of uniform". The mysterious NPC whom you encounter early on also warns Renee of those individuals who dress like her. There are "clones" who look identical to Renee save for their color palettes, and in "The Homecoming" ending, you'll see other individuals dressed in white cloaks that almost resemble what Renee is wearing.
  • At several points, Ifree suspiciously cuts the conversation if someone recognizes her as a Pyro Goliath, until it borders into being a Running Gag. Over time however, the hints are becoming more obvious, such as in the Silent Coast when Ifree casually lights up a magic lamp with her fireball, Renee herself lampshades how it was possible since a ghost previously said a Goliath's power is needed to light up that lamp in the first place. As you venture further into the Field of Pyro and progress the story, Ifree will formally reveal her real identity.
  • A bunch of hints are scattered as an Echo, a Flavor Text, a warning from Ifree, or a conversation after using the subweapon that clue you in towards the fact that the Mysterious Rod given by Patt is an ominous evil artifact, and Patt himself is not a trustworthy individual. The end of the "Gift" sidequest finally reveals that Patt wanted to use the rod to absorb souls, and Renee has been deceived on receiving and using it.
• Full Health Bonus: When upgraded, the greatsword "Stainless" increases Renee's physical damage and reduces her damage taken when her HP is full. Its Flavor Text mentions the belief that flawless combat would grant its wielder better strength.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Initially, the names of biomes or locations are written in cryptic glyphs. The HUD and menus will show their actual names only after Renee has learned them (either from reading Echoes that mention the place, or hearing the location's name from other NPCs).
• Gratuitous Greek: The four main elements are thematically named after Greek words; Anemo (wind), Pyro (fire), Geo (earth), Hydro (water).
• Guide Dang It!:
  • Many locked doors and gates are opened only after you've hit a switch or obtain the appropriate key. But as you progress through the mid-game to late-game areas, there are going to be gates and barriers requiring something else that's not immediately obvious, such as obtaining an item that doesn't look like a key (Primeval Glyphs, for example), or progressing through a sidequest. Oftentimes without a walkthrough or prior knowledge, this can lead to repeated trial-and-error and backtracking just to figure out how such barriers are opened.
  • Dimly-lit hidden zones aren't reflected nor updated in the map even after you've discovered them. By default, this would make it difficult to Backtrack specifically on them... unless you've manually placed a map marker on their spot as soon as you've reached them. This only gets compounded if a Last Lousy Point happens to be in these hidden zones.
  • Although an update added the quality-of-life feature that displays map markers for NPCs involved in sidequests, they only appear after you've initiated the questline. However, the triggers that start some quests may not be easily obvious. For example, the "Travel" sidequest requires having freed Owl from the Holy Grounds, talking to him and Stanley in the Holy Grounds' entrance, and then talking to Stanley's substitute in his shop. The latter two steps don't have readily-available icons on the map, so without a guide, the other method of knowing this mostly relies on backtracking.
• Hailfire Peaks: One biome may contain areas with differing atmosphere or weather, depending on which other biomes are directly adjacent to it. For example, Goliathfall is an expansive biome consisting of ominous dark-looking dungeons on the south and middle, a desert area on its southwest and northeast, and a green forest area on its northwest. The latter also gives a contrast of its own, as the extreme northwest point of Goliathfall is a burning forest which connects the area to the fiery land of Scorchwhere.
• Harping on About Harpies: Chained Harpies are purple harpy-like creatures with red eyes, long "ears", a tail, an sickle attached to one of their legs.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: There are bosses that are scripted to "defeat" Renee and send her back to respawn at a Confluence, which wouldn't look out of place from a typical in-game "death" during a boss fight.
  • The first instance happens right during the first boss fight; the Lush Wolf gains a stronger form after you deplete its first HP bar, and its attacks become harder to avoid and can One-Hit Kill Renee on contact. However, the "first death" here is caused by a Hopeless Boss Fight that just helps contextualize the lore behind Confluences and lampshades Renee's "Gift" of being able to keep coming back after "dying".
  • Defeating The Unstoppable Devil in the Forest Foregone lets it unleash an attack that knocks out Renee in the succeeding cutscene and sends her back to the nearest Confluence, though at this point, Ifree is just fine at waiting for Renee to respawn. You'd still have to backtrack to the boss arena to progress, but that last attack that knocked out Renee gets viewed by the duo as a sign that they are on the right track.
• Healing Checkpoint: Confluences serve as this game's save points; resting on them fully refills Renee's HP, MP, and Primeval Glyphs.
• Healing Potion: Health Potions are consumable items that restore Renee's HP by a given amount depending on the potions' tiers. Naturally, bigger and rarer potions restore more HP.
• Heal Thyself: Renee can use Primeval Glyphs to pray and recover her HP. However, she can only hold a finite amount of glyphs, which are then restored whenever she rests at a Confluence. 42 and Karsa have a similar self-healing mechanic in their playable versions, though they also have their own unique healing animations distinct from Renee's.
• Heart Container: Every third Shard of Divine Life permanently increases Renee's max HP by 10 points on top of instantly refilling the meter on the spot. The Shards of Divine Flower are the equivalent upgrades for the MP bar, providing a permanent 3-point boost for every three of them collected.
• Helpful Mook: The downkick attack unlocked by the Left-wing Feather of Windwalker Afterimage allows Renee to bounce off and gain altitude from specific flying enemies, providing access to higher platforms that are normally hard-to-reach.
• Hint System: Once Ripe has settled in Resting Town, talking to him lets him mention a hint on where you should be going next. But due to the game's rather open nature for most biomes, it's possible for the player to have already explored (and cleared) that "next" biome before receiving the appropriate directional hint from Ripe.
• Hit Stop:
  • There's a slow-motion effect every time the playable character is damaged.
  • The blade weapon Deathmatch is mechanically built around parrying attacks. Its Flavor Text and lore aren't the only ones supplementing this, the weapon also changes Renee's basic attack into the "Clashing Blades" weapon skill - a slash that produces a dramatic slow-motion effect whenever it successfully connects with an enemy's attack. As of the Trio in the Sea update, playable Karsa has "Mighty Blow" as the name of his own equivalent of the "Clashing Blades" skill.
• Homing Projectile: Spellcasters or mage-like enemies fire orb projectiles that follow Renee for some time, though the amount of orbs fired at once and their speed vary.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Colossus of Pyro, Creation of Goliath will unleash a screen wide scream that's a One-Hit Kill on Renee until you get an item to resist it. Ifree will warn you against facing it beforehand, and taunt you after the first time you get hit by its One-Hit Kill.
• Iaijutsu Practitioner:
  • Renee can equip Blade-type weapons consisting of a katana and its scabbard. Many of her attacks and Blade Skills with such weapons involve unsheating the katana, then sheathing it back afterwards.
  • As their name implies, Unsheather Hollows are agile warriors armed with katanas, and they fight by unsheathing their weapon as they zip around the field. Expect a lot of delayed and lingering slashes from them.
• Idle Animation: A butterfly would approach Renee and she would try raising her palm to catch it.
• Immune to Flinching: Pious Blessing not only hastens Renee's self-healing magic with Primeval Glyphs, it also prevents the healing process from being interrupted by enemy attacks.
• Inescapable Ambush: Entering specific areas may trigger battles against waves of ambushing enemies. Exit points will be covered by indestructible walls such as pillars until you defeat all enemies inside.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Treasure chests are well-scattered in different points of the biomes, particularly in platforms or ledges where you need some traversing or movement upgrades.
• Informed Equipment: Renee can equip headgears, armors, footwear, or accessories of varying designs, but they won't be reflected in her person; only those equipped specifically in the outfit slot change her appearance.
• Intangibility:
  • Twisted Heretics have the ability to temporarily phase out and avoid getting hit even though you can see their transparent bodies when it happens. They are ghosts, so this makes sense.
  • The Crimson Cape Afterimage upgrades Renee's dash ability to let her phase through enemies and some barriers or traps, albeit it works on a cooldown. It is obtained from Reaping Scythe, the Crimson Hollow, a knight who can phase out of the material world. Fittingly, the boss and the movement upgrade are found in Goliathfall, which also contains the Cavalry Hollow who posses similar intangibility powers.
• In the Hood: During your first encounters with her, 42 wears a black hooded cloak which hides her face and makes her a mysterious or suspicious individual from the perspectives of Renee and Ifree (the two don't even know her name at first). It turns out 42 doesn't always wear the hooded cloak, and during most times in the endgame when we don't see her putting it on, it's already been made clear that she's actually an ally.
• Invisible Wall: Some specific edges of biomes have no wall textures even though their locations on the overworld map indicate a vertical border. Interestingly, Renee can still Wall Jump on these "invisible walls". An example would be the upper-rightmost edge in the Town of the Exiled, though a more obvious one is found on the left of the Soulfield arena where you fight the Spirit of the Sword.
• Irony: In the past, the Holy Grounds needed the constructed aqueduct system from The Columns to have a substantial supply of water and support the inhabitants. After the Razing, the Holy Grounds have been submerged in the lake of the Teardrop, yet no inhabitant dwells within those submerged parts anymore. Echo 10 outright calls and lampshades such incident as an irony.
• "Just Frame" Bonus: A Talent Node unlocks the "Instant" mechanic for the Blade Skills, wherein pressing the attack button again after the blade flashes enhances the move, giving it additional hits or combo finishers.
• Lag Cancel: All main movement upgrades (such as dashing, jumpkics, extra jumps, and so on) allow you to cancel any previous attack's animation to quickly perform another attack. It's easily observable on the extra jumps and fast weapons. For example, Renee can perform three basic aerial slashes in quick succession with Blade-type weapons if the triple jump ability is unlocked.
• Last-Second Ending Choice: The amount of Memory Shards that you place in the device of the God's Hall determines the next boss fight and one of three endings; zero shards leads to "Homecoming", one or two shards lead to "The Cradle", and all three shards lead to "The Essential". You'd fight only the Guider in the first two endings, but the third ending lets you fight the Guider and red Renee back-to-back.
• Leap of Faith: There's a high cliff in the Emerald Falls where you can jump down a great chasm without any prior hint on what awaits you below. This will unlock the "Holy Diver" Achievement/Trophy which outright has the description or requirement of "perform a leap of faith".
• Ledge Bats: In the Columns, there are Sharklings that are scripted to spawn or roam around platforms, with the express purpose of trying to knock you off or mess up your landings while platforming.
• Level Cap: The maximum Character Level is 99. Though you have to grind levels in the main game, the Trial of Soul mode instead pre-emptively sets all playable characters to Level 99.
• Level-Up Fill-Up: Leveling up completely refills Renee's HP, even in the middle of a fight.
• Life Drain:
  • The Ancient Fangs dualblades restore a bit of Renee's HP with each hit.
  • Red Renee recovers her HP whenever her attacks damage you during her boss fights.
  • The other variant focuses on a "Recover HP on Kill" stat that recovers Renee's HP whenever she kills an enemy. Some weapons or equipment adjust or increase it, though there's also an unlockable Talent node which passively provides this effect. 42 also has a similar passive during her ten playable New Game Plus chapters.
• Limited Loadout: Renee can only equip up to two main weapons (one primary and one secondary), one subweapon (spellbooks, staves, wands or scrolls that cast magic), one headgear, one armor, one leg gear, and up to three accessories.
• Locked Door:
  • Large gates may require you to strike and activate a nearby lever to open them.
  • Some locked doors in the background can't be accessed (as indicated by a blue X icon) unless you've explored enough and found the necessary keys that will open them.
• Macrogame: Some of 42's "New Game Plus" chapters retain your map exploration progress from Renee's playthrough on virtue of them being tied to the same save file. Not that it comes in handy though, as 42's stages are modified with several red barriers to keep things more linear this time.
• Magic Staff: Staves are a classification of subweapons that allow Renee to cast spells. Unlike spellbooks, wands, and scrolls, staves usually focus on longer-lasting or complex spells. 42 also exclusively uses a staff to launch magic spells in her playable version.
• Magikarp Power: Initially, the Sacred Seed accessory offers no stat adjustments despite its Flavor Text implying that it has some power inside it, and hints that carrying it brings you some luck. It "evolves" if you kill a lot of enemies when you have it equipped, which then makes it permanently grant five good stat boosts all-around.
• Mana Meter: MP is gauged by the blue meter below the HP bar. It is consumed by casting equipped spells and it naturally replenishes over time.
• Mass Monster-Slaughter Sidequest: The "Activation" sidequest from Levine requires you to defeat a bunch of ghosts from the Town of the Exiled to gather souls for the orb artifact he gave you.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Not only is there a Gameplay and Story Integration wherein the biomes' names are updated on the map and interface only if Renee (and the player) has learned them through in-game means, said means such as Echoes usually explain how the biome easily got its name In-Universe. Oftentimes, a very specific spot within the biome may have its own name as well. For example, Echo 2 says this:
    Echo 2: That's it! From today on, this is our new home! A village in the Rubiwood Desert... For simplicity, call it Rubiwood Village!
  • Equippable weapons or gear may have in-universe justifications for their names as well, depending on how they're phrased or mentioned in the Flavor Text. For example, the Blade of Lost was named as such because it was simply lost when the tribe where it belonged was wiped out.
• Mercy Invincibility: There's a very brief window of invincibility whenever Renee takes damage, although the equippable Space Block Afterimage slightly extends its duration.
• Meteor-Summoning Attack: Though it isn't stated within its gameplay tooltip, the blade weapon Heart of Sun can sometimes spawn a fireball meteorite when it hits an enemy, and the meteorite will fall diagonally to deal additional damage. The only hint of this unique mechanic is in the weapon's Flavor Text which mentions the weapon being able to "summon the sun at times".
• Midas Touch: The Scroll of Pillage grants the "Midas Touch" spell which launches a golden fireball projectile that forces enemies to drop Dews when they die from it.
• Mirror Boss: Zig-zagged with Red Renee. Although she mixes in some of her own projectiles and Teleport Spam, she generally just fights with an over-the-top version of the blade's regular moveset.
• Money Multiplier: Some accessories and weapons boost your Dew Gain rate by a given percentage.
• Money Spider:
  • Stronger enemies drop Dews whenever they're slain, though only by a minimal amount.
  • Golden Sporelings only take Scratch Damage per hit, but repeatedly striking them causes plenty of Dews to drop from their bodies.
• Monster Compendium: Finding the Magic Journal item unlocks the Beastiary feature in the pause menu, which displays basic information (such as the Level, HP, Attack stat, and item droplist) for each enemy type you've encounter so far.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: The "Spidermonkey" creatures have four arms and two legs, though the more straightforward examples are the Spidermonkey Brawlers and Pyro Assaulters, strong mooks that use their four arms to repeatedly punch you with combos.
• Multiple Endings: Ten of them. They're either associated with Renee fighting the Guider and her clones or Ifree becoming the Goliath of Pyro again.
• Mundane Utility: As mentioned in a hidden Echo of hers, the fairy Se created the dream travelling spell "just to sleep while working".
• Musical Trigger: A puzzle and sidequest objective in the Whispering Forest has you listening to five notes and replicating the whole tune in the correct order via some teacups that have floating musical notes on them.
• My Name Is ???: NPCs who haven't told you their names yet are labeled as "???" in the dialogue interface. This also extends to HUD and menu elements, such as the masked swordswoman boss of the Rainbow Plains being labeled as such above her health bar and in her Beastiary entry.
• Named Weapons: Some weapons have non-generic names to signify their uniqueness apart from having detailed Flavor Text. The first example is Renee's starting sword named "Stars". Mid-game and late-game weapons often fall into this category as well, such as a pale-colored whip named "Pale Dance", etc.
• Necessary Drawback: For balancing purposes, some weapons, armors, or accessories give a stat penalty in exchange for other stat boots or unique passive effects. One of the many examples are the Ancient Fangs dualblades which provide a Life Drain effect at the cost of reducing max HP by 50 points.
• Necromancer: Typically, some mages are trained to refine corpses and prevent such corpses from turning into Wanderers. However, there are also "exotic fanatics" that reversed the art to turn the bodies into controllable Wanderers.
• Non-Combat EXP: Viewing Echoes for the first time rewards you additional EXP.
• Non-Elemental: "Physical" is the standard damage type which is color-coded in plain white. There are weapons such as the Stainless greatsword which specifically mention and boost Physical damage.
• Not-Actually-Cosmetic Award: Alternate outfits not only change Renee's color palette, some of them provide passive stat boosts as well.
• Notice This:
  • You can spot Confluences from offscreen thanks to the large patches of glowing blue flora surrounding them. They also play bell ring tunes when you're near them.
  • Items that can be picked up glow with color-coded light to help you spot them in the environment or if they're dropped on the floor.
  • The equippable Afterimages that you can pick up while exploring are always found near conspicuous tree branches colored white and gold. This is coupled with the Afterimages themselves already being purple-coded collectibles. Divine Seeds (which let you equip more Afterimages) are likewise mostly found near larger "tree"-like versions of these branches.
  • Treasurescope of Se makes a noise and displays its icon above Renee's head whenever she's near a treasure or collectible that hasn't been obtained yet.
• Not the Intended Use: Interacting with any Echo makes Renee invincible (by disabling collision) while the text box is displayed. So if there's an Echo in the middle of a fight, this tactic can give you a free breathing room on command, and lets you ignore some enemies' stronger attacks when properly timed.
• Number of the Beast: An Achievement/Trophy named "Number of the Beast" is given for dealing 666 damage in one attack.
• Optional Boss: Given the huge maps, some bosses or mini-bosses aren't absolutely required to progress the story, yet defeating them still rewards you valuable upgrades such as Talent Points, Afterimages, or equipment. They're often found in the suspiciously-large rooms or corners of the maps, serving as their arena. One example of an optional boss is the Giant Oreep in the Field of Geo.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: The Town of the Exiled is a literal ghost town featuring an assortment of ghosts that you can encounter; Remains are "three-eyed" purple specters, Vagrants are green ghosts of humans armed with bottles, the "Twisted" ghosts range from a priest, a gravestone with arms for walking, a bird-like creature with eyes on its wings, or a purple mass resembling a dog. Dancers are pale ghosts who resemble deceased female humans on a dress fitting their name.
• Palette Swap: The equippable Outfits visually alter the colors of Renee's sprite. For added fluff, some of them are references to other video game characters, or a Renee look-alike.
• Parrying Bullets: Well-timed melee attacks will deflect projectiles and deal damage to enemies that fired them. There's even an early-game tutorial that teaches you this mechanic when you encounter the first archer enemy.
• Platform Hell: In platforming puzzles, the environmental spike traps will respawn Renee into an earlier "safe" spot upon contact. Sometimes, the puzzle may be forgiving enough to respawn her to a near platform where you can easily retry again. Unfortunately, there are harder platforming puzzles surrounded by spikes from several directions but with a few breathing spots for you to land, wherein a failure or mistimed landing can send you all the way back to the very start of the segment. These become more common in areas post the Double Jump ability, and you may have to properly time and chain double jumps, air dashes, and/or downkick-bouncing to succeed.
• Player Nudge: After you've gathered enough souls for the orb artifact in the "Activation" sidequest, Levine moves to a different part of the Holy Grounds than his usual meeting place. Upon visiting the biome, the game will play a scene showing where he is, and highlights his new location on the map even if you haven't visited that specific area yet.
• Portmanteau: The game just loves to use portmanteaus for its creatures, they double as subtle wordplays. For example, the Oreep are sheep-like creatures embedded with ore, with their name being a mix of "ore" and "sheep", Geaslime are slime creatures with gears in their bodies, Shelmet are two-legged creatures that wear a clam shell like a helmet, etc.
• Post-End Game Content: Unlocking an ending saves your progress, keeps the EXP you gained from defeating a Final Boss, and grants an achievement. However, the game will boot back to the main menu, letting you reload that same save file and play again from the previous checkpoint as usual, while keeping the updated progress. Not only does this let the player unlock the other endings without completely starting from scratch, some endings also unlock new items (such as a weapon or outfit) after reloading the updated save file.
• Powers as Programs: Apart from movement upgrades, Afterimages include equippable upgrades (indicated as diamond-shaped icons) that passively boost Renee's abilities or modify gameplay mechanics. You can find a variety of them as you explore, although the amount of passive Afterimages that you can equip at most is determined by your Divine Seed slots.
• Power-Up Food: Every kind of cooked dish has its own temporary Status Buff that's applied to Renee for every consumption, but eating a dish for the first time also provides a permanent boost to one of Renee's stats or gives her a Talent Point.
• Power-Up Magnet: The "Scavenger" Afterimage automatically collects Dews within a significant range.
• Pressure Plate: On specific areas like the Field of Geo, stepping on pressure plates will activate nearby environmental traps. These plates may be hard to notice at first glance as their color blends with the floor and the surroundings.
• Promoted to Playable:
  • 42, the mysterious hooded NPC who helped rebuild the soul of Mastermage Aros, becomes the playable character of the ten unlockable "New Game Plus" bonus chapters. She returns as a playable character of the Trial of Soul mode after the Trio of the Sea content update.
  • Karsa, the NPC adventurer whom you meet several times in the main story, becomes a playable character for the first time in the Trial of Soul mode thanks to the Trio in the Sea content update.
• Random Drop: Slain enemies may randomly drop materials that can be used in the Cooking Mechanics. Rarer item drops may include not only higher-tier materials, but also weapons and armor pieces that can be equipped by Renee. There are "Drop Rate" and "Rare Drop Rate" stats that increase the chances of item drops, though some gear or weapons (such as the Scroll of Pillage) are also designed for manipulating the chances to the player's favor.
• Recurring Boss:
  • The masked swordswoman from the Rainbow Plains (labeled as "???") is fought again as a potential Final Boss in the Sunken Sanctum, now under the moniker of "Guider, the Shadow Moon". She would have higher stats and more advanced gimmicks during the latter fight.
  • Some bosses originally fought by the protagonist Renee would appear again in 42's New Game Plus chapters onward, or vice-versa. Of a particular note is Red Renee, who is fought at least thrice in total (one fight with Renee, and two fights with 42). Others such as Crystallized Wolf are fought once each by the two girls.
• Regenerating Health: Surviving Slip is an equippable Afterimage that slowly regenerates the health points Renee has lost after taking damage, though it will pre-emptively stop if she takes damage again while the healing is still ongoing.
• Respawning Enemies: Resting at a Confluence also respawns all non-boss enemies in the area, including those that are just a few steps away from the save point.
• Reverse Grip: Souless Ode holds their sword with a reverse grip.
• Rewarding Vandalism: Renee can open treasure chests by striking them with her weapon.
• Rolling Attack: Several creatures, mooks and bosses roll forward to deal damage. The earliest ones that do this for example, are the Oreeps.
• Running Gag: Several characters (including Renee herself) blatantly describe Ifree as a talkative one, albeit to varying degrees of Purple Prose (such as saying "[Ifree] cannot hold her tongue"). Naturally, Ifree may catch on and be annoyed by such remarks. For example, this happens when you meet Ripe and Ethan for the first time.
• Schrödinger's Gun: Brandr, the Blazing Blade can be fought in two locations; the Field of Pyro, and Scorchwhere. You only have to defeat him once however, and he won't appear again on the other location afterwards.
• Shaping Your Attacks: A Tidal Colossus can shapeshift one of its arms into either an axe or a sword while attacking. It's justified given the creature is made out of water.
• Shield-Bearing Mook:
  • Raiders are equipped with wooden shields having spikes attached in front. They primarily use it to charge forward and bash you, and it doesn't have defensive properties; striking the shield still deals damage to the Raider.
  • Vanguard Knights are fully-armored soldiers equipped with shields. But unlike the aforementioned Raiders, the shields of these knights serve an actual in-game purpose; any frontal damage that you do to them is massively reduced while they're holding their shields facing you.
• Simple, yet Awesome:
  • The Scroll of Pillage's "Midas Touch" spell creates a fast-launching golden fireball, which forces Dews to drop from enemies if they die from it and increases the chance of their Random Drops. It's one of the alternative ways that guarantee Money Grinding (and to an extent, Item Farming), provided you have enough mana and good stats to consistently kill enemies with it.
  • Mystic Coin is an equippable Afterimage that passively does two things; increase Critical Hit chance, and causes Dews to drop from critical hits. Not only does it boost potential damage output, it lets you slowly farm currency. Considering how a lot of services and weapon enhancements cost plenty of Dews, having another way to farm currency helps a lot in the long run, especially after you've run out of the primary ways of obtaining them while exploring.
  • The equippable Pious Blessing Afterimage hastens Renee's self-healing magic and makes her uninterruptible during the process. It's not flashy, but it makes healing glyphs more reliable when you need to use them in a pinch.
  • The Anemogrim blade (which is a reference to the Crissaegrim of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night) replaces the basic blade attack with quick slash arcs. It's spammable because it doesn't have any actual attack animation nor recovery frames, so it becomes extremely useful whenever you have to parry projectiles, and even if your damage output from up-close depends on how much can you button mash.
• Skill Point Reset: Potions of Oblivion are rare consumable items that reset Talent Points. It's justified in the lore, as the potion's description mentions the person having to forget a part of their memory upon consuming it.
• Skill Scores and Perks: The Talent interface provides a web of nodes where you can spend Talent Points to upgrade Renee's stats or unlock new combat abilities for her, the latter of which are mostly weapon-dependent.
• Sliding Scale of Linearity vs. Openness: Even for a Metroidvania, this game is mostly non-linear as you progress from some areas. Apart from exploration tips provided by Ripe, there's little handholding on where you exactly need to go, and you may find yourself visiting a later-game biome earlier than intended. For example after you unlock the Double Jump ability in the Emerald Falls, you are free to enter either The Columns or The Town Of The Exiled. The latter is harder, but it contains higher-leveled enemies and better loot, which would then make your trek to the former much easier if you decided to clear out the town first. The only aspects that would prevent the game from being truly open are the eventual points where you need to acquire even more traversal upgrades.
• Some Dexterity Required: Most of the unlockable Weapon Skills simply require holding down one direction or a unique button alongside pressing the attack button. However, there are some that require inputs with varying degrees of complexity. For example, "Tiger Claw" requires three button presses in quick succession (down then forward, then attack, subtly mimicking the "quarter-circle-forward" motion from the Fighting Game genre), while "Decrescent Moon" requires pressing two buttons simultaneously (dash and attack).
• Sound-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • A unique chime plays whenever you uncover and visit a "secret" or well-hidden location in the corners of some areas.
  • The red pillars of light that block your path emit distinct noises when you're near them.
• Spell Book: Spellbooks are a classification of subweapons that allow Renee to cast quick spells, which include simple magic projectiles.
• Sprint Shoes:
  • The Hastewalker Afterimage slightly increases movement speed when equipped.
  • The Wisp of Speed talent node also passively provides a small percentage boost to movement speed.
• Starter Equipment: Renee begins her adventure equipped with the basic one-handed sword named "Stars".
• Stationary Boss:
  • Colossus of Pyro, Creation of Goliath is fixed at the center of its arena, though it compensates by having a variety of far-reaching attacks, projectiles, and explosions.
  • Aqil, the Pyro Goliath has his head (and weak point) staying only in one place, though his dragon-like "limbs" are the ones that constantly move around to attack you.
• Stat Sticks: Aside from having an Attack stat, rarer weapons may provide other passive stat boosts for as long as they're equipped, even if you're not actually using these weapons in combat.
• Story Breadcrumbs: Apart from cutscenes, the lore and worldbuilding of Engardin is also scattered across various other aspects of the game, including but not limited to:
  • Flavor Text in the item descriptions of almost everything that you can pick up, from equipment, consumables, etc. Specific items (such as letters) have lengthy descriptions for the main purpose of exposition or infodump.
  • Echoes and dialogue trees. For instance, the names of areas or biomes are initially written in cryptic glyphs, but if Renee learns the name of the location through reading Echoes or from NPCs, it will be reflected in the HUD and menus, which also makes it a case of Gameplay and Story Integration.
  • The HUD elements and tutorial tips. For example, the Essence Drops or main currency are called "Dews", while Renee's self-healing ability is due to "Primeval Glyphs". Both of these are mentioned to the player for the first time during the tutorial sections.
• Summon to Hand: Spirit of the Sword begins its boss fight by summoning the Nameless sword into its hand when the weapon was just impaled to the ground moments prior.
• Super Drowning Skills: Initially, touching any deep body of water or a geyser (which is considered an environmental hazard) damages Renee and sends her back to a safe ground. It's only until the Blessing of Samsare is obtained can Renee safely move underwater.
• Talk to Everyone: Interacting with NPCs and choosing specific dialogue options may open up new quests or update the progress of currently-accepted quests.
• Telepathy: The Whitefeathers can read minds, according to one that's encountered in the Albedo Tower, although he describes such ability as feeling the thoughts of others. It's demonstrated during Renee and Ifree's first encounter with him, as he's able to answer their monologue questions immediately.
• Temporary Platform:
  • The Whispering Forest contains mushroom-like platforms that retract after being stepped on, though a nearby purple "switch" can be struck to manually turn them into working platforms again.
  • Sky Palace has wooden and stone platforms that crumble after being stepped or clinged on, though they'll return a few seconds later.
• Tiered by Name: Talent Essences are collectible items from the environment that immediately increase Renee's available Talent Points. They may have a Roman numeral suffix to indicate how much they'll add; Talent Essence II and Talent Essence III give 2 and 3 points, respectively.
• Title Drop:
  • Movement upgrades and equippable passive upgrades for Renee are collectively called "Afterimages", and there's even a tab interface that groups them as such in the pause menu.
  • Obtaining all other in-game Achievements/Trophies earns you the "AFTERIMAGE" Achievement.
• Underground Monkey: Some enemies that you can fight are merely palette swaps of each other. For example, the flying magic books called "Grimoires" are colored depending on their elemental powers; Pyro Grimoires are bright orange, Hydro Grimoires are light blue, etc.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: "The Hope" ending requires Renee (and the player) to ignore Ifree's constant plea of finding a better alternative instead of having to destroy the egg containing the souls of Agus and Aqil. This will lead to Renee and Ifree fighting each other, resulting to the latter's defeat. As this leads to an ending, the player is rewarded an Achievement for accomplishing it.
• Video Game Dashing: The Emblem of Windwalker Afterimage is a movement upgrade that unlocks ground dashing and Air-Dashing mechanics. It's enhanced by the Crimson Cape Afterimage which makes Renee intangible while dashing. There are also the Wisp of Agility talent node and the equippable Anemo Wings Afterimage which slightly increase dash distance, or provide additional mechanics while dashing.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Lamellar Warrior is the second boss encounter, but is one of the first "proper" boss fights mechanically. Unlike the Lush Wolf which has 60 HP and 11 Attack, the Lamellar Warrior brings the idea that bosses onward are tanky, fast, and hit hard (the warrior has around 500 HP and 20 Attack), and have more complex attacks that encourage players to read attack cues then avoid or dodge them properly.
• Wall Jump: The Agile Claw Afterimage is a movement upgrade that allows Renee to cling to, slide down, and jump between walls.
• Warm-Up Boss: Lush Wolf, the first boss fight, has easy-to-avoid telegraphed attacks and low stats (at 60 HP and 11.5 Attack. By comparison, the next two boss fights in the Rainbow Plains have around 500 to 600 HP and 20 Attack). At least, this trope only applies to its first form, as the wolf is scripted to become a Hopeless Boss Fight after you deplete its first HP bar.
• Warp Whistle:
  • Resting Potions are consumable items that allow instant fast travel to any previously-discovered Confluence via the map interface.
  • With the Flower of Confluence Afterimage, you can freely travel between the "Main Stream" Confluences (larger Confluences which are indicated on the map as tree icons, unlike the smaller, standard Confluences).
• Weaponized Teleportation: The masked swordswoman "???" whom you fight in the Rainbow Plains and later on as the Guider in the Sunken Sanctum has a main gimmick of creating and hopping into portals while attacking, mostly to devise sneaky tactics.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: The two Occult Prime bosses each use a pair of opposing Elemental Powers. One fights with the power of Pyro and Hydro, while the other fights with the power of Anemo and Geo.
• You Are Number 6: The mysterious cloaked woman whom you encounter early on in Rubiwood Desert is a member of the Institute of Consciousness, and she's simply known as 42.
• You No Take Candle: The speaking mushroom in the Field of Geo speaks simple fragmented phrases. Ifree even lampshades it.
  Ifree: Can't the mushroom speak more eloquently? Hey, speak in full sentences! Ifree can't take it anymore!

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