Video Game / Artery Gear: Fusion

Save the world with mecha girls! ^note Left to right: Nio, Mel, 04, and Rela

Artery Gear: Fusion (机动战姬：聚变) is a Free-to-Play Chinese mobile Mecha Turn-Based Strategy developed by Access and published by Bilibili. Originally released in China in 2021, global servers opened on 14 June, 2022.

Set in a post-apocalyptic setting, the year is 2162. Humanity has been reduced to a fraction to what it once was by monsters known as 'Puppets'. The war against the Puppets has lasted decades, and there is only one last safe zone left in space. At first, this seemed like a grim end for humanity, until they managed to produce new technology – 'Artery Gears'. Artery Gears are girls that have been fused with technological upgrades, giving them the strength and firepower needed to take on the Puppets. You, as the Player Character, take control of your own fleet of Artery Gears and guide them in a battle to save the world.

What starts out as a straightforward story of love, hope and friendship becomes more and more complex as the true motivations of humanity and survival are put to the test. The story explores the failings of human beings and the complexity of political ties, all set to a backdrop of a hellish war. How far are the characters willing to save everything they love? Is there any point to dragging out an unsustainable resistance? And is what they hold dear even worth saving in the first place?

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Artery Gear: Fusion contains examples of:

• The Ace:
  • The Commander is so skilled in battle that they earn the respect of the Union and Frontier fleets immediately during the prologue, despite how nothing else is known about them besides combat ability.
  • Sirius has gotten top marks at the Academy of Dolls and is even better than most graduates. Her only flaw is being unable to coordinate any team she leads. This still doesn't seem to hinder her by much, as she's fully capable of taking on many puppets on her own.
• Aerith and Bob: Many Artery Gears have cool-sounding codenames like Ghost, Phantom, Darkdeep and Corax.... then you also have Katie, Michelle, Jessie and other mundane names.
• After the End: Puppets are destroying most of humanity, and only with the recent advent of Artery Gears has humanity begun to fight back.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Each of the Puppet Masters faced in the main story have tragic backstories.
  • The Rift Octopus was once an Artery Gear who was experimented on and made to endure torturous pain. Killing her is treated as a cathartic moment of freeing her from her pain and continued existence.
  • The Centaur was once the most powerful knight from the Autoluna faction. Upon becoming Puppetised, she became obsessed with completing a mission she can no longer remember, but yet will travel to the ends of the earth to complete. Her death occurs when Queen Autoluna orders her to commit suicide with the last shreds remaining of her loyalty. The Centaur complies.
  • The Iron Maiden was once a young girl that was The Un Favourite of her family. Her own parents fitted her with a bomb and were planning to use her as a weapon, not caring for her life. As a Puppet Master, she constantly puppetises everyone and everything in a desperate attempt to gain the love from a family she so desired. In her last moments, she remembers her past before she is killed.
• Allegedly Free Game:
  • The game can be played for free, but you can pay for more tickets and forging crystals to roll the gacha to get your desired characters.
  • Skins for characters can only be bought with outfit coupons that can be obtained with real money.
• Alpha Bitch: Pavonis is presented this way in her event, Run, Pavonis! In the event, Pavonis promises outlandish rewards for each Artery Gear to abandon their commander and actually succeeds. Pavonis proceeds to try to gain control of the fleet with an iron fist.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: The fate of anyone who gets Puppetised.
  • The Rift Octopus was once Quinn’s friend Massana. She wishes to end her friend’s current state.
  • This happened in the past to Cream. She was attacked by a puppet and had nearly permanently transformed into a puppet herself. Only a last-minute transformation into an Artery Gear saved her life.
  • Clarice is a puppetised Artery Gear that has managed to maintain her ability to think and strategise.
  • The original Condor was turned into a Puppet Master after suffering grievous injuries on the battlefield. Unlike most other Puppet Masters, she still retains some sanity from her past life. She manages to regain enough lucidity to ask Milvus to kill her.
  • Chapter 9 reveals that Nio has been Puppetized for quite a while, but has been able to suppress the effects using her special core. When she removes the core to save the Commander, she becomes a Puppet Master.
• Anti-Rage Quitting: Quitting in a Player Versus Player battle will deduct points, called 'exercise badges', from your current number and counts as a loss, ending your win streak.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: Most noticeable on one-eyed Artery Gears such as Sirius and Shyura.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Some events reward the player with skins, which are alternate outfits and portraits for characters.
• Animal Motifs:
  • 04 is also nicknamed 'fox' and her mechanical upgrades resemble fox ears. One of her skills is also called Overclocked Fox.
  • Team Bobcat has members outfitted with special cat spine technology resembling tails, and many members also have mechanical parts resembling cat ears.
  • The aptly named Spider Service have prosthetic bodies heavily resembling spiders.
  • Team Carrot is very similar, with mechanical parts resembling rabbit ears.
  • The Harpyia have names or designs inspired by birds, such as the raven (Corax), crane (Senba), peacock (Pavonis), and Condor.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • A good piece of gear is relatively easy to obtain in Artery Gear:
    • Gear substats are shown the instant you receive your gear from target eliminations. This makes it easier to decide which gear is worth keeping and prevents waste of upgrade materials.
    • Fusion can be used to transfer substats between any piece of gear dropped from the same boss. This massively streamlines the grinding for gear that you'll need.
    • Casting a piece of gear will always upgrade the lowest tier of substats first.
    • Reforging allows you to reroll the substats of a 6* piece of gear. In the case that your rolls are unfavorable, you get to keep the substats you had before.
  • The game allows you to constantly repeat stages offline by using 'substitute operations', saving you the time, battery and hassle needed to grind stages on autoplay.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Present in both teams and the fleet.
  • Teams are limited to a maximum of four Artery Gears.
  • The fleet can be upgraded up to five times to hold five rooms. Each one of these rooms can hold a maximum of five Artery Gears, up to a total of twenty-five.
• Badass Adorable: The younger Artery Gears, such as those from the AutoMagi and Team Bobcat factions, are adorable and can still absolutely kick ass.
• Badass Teacher: Hearin is a veteran Artery Gear that has survived many battles, and is currently a teacher at the Academy of Dolls.
• Beach Episode: The Ghost Light event featured several side stories for Hearin, Chitose, Nemophila, Tony and Maika at the beach.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
  • Clarice pretends to be an innocent medic new to the field that hates seeing unnecessary deaths. This is revealed to be a ploy: Clarice did this in order to bug the Union’s Artery Gears. Then, she conspires with rogue Artery Gears to damage the relationship between the Union and the Frontier, and disrupt their plan to take out an Elite Mook.
  • Lisa Autoluna at first appears to be a kind, easygoing and dorky queen that is Hopeless with Tech. Then she lies to an entire population of humans at Sky Port, makes plans to forcibly turn humans into Artery Gears and send them to their deaths, and proposes a takeover of Frontier fleets to Atlas. Under her command, she constantly promotes false narratives of the Frontier and Union fleets and paints her nation as being superior to them. Her final plan is to take over the Ground and leave anyone who doesn’t fit her high standards to die.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: Andy creates a special pink, glowing carrot juice. Nobody else knows what she puts in it, and everyone else hates it. It was voted number one on the worst homemade dish rankings by far.
• Blood Knight: Shyura loves destroying things and often challenges other Artery Gears to a fight.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Puppet Masters puppetise humans and Artery Gears for reasons beyond their understanding. For instance, the Harpist puppetises others to get them to play in her symphony... Or worse, break them for the unique sounds their destruction makes.
• Body Horror: 04 losing her prosthetics in combat is extremely graphic and is described as unsettling for others to witness.
• Cast Herd: Several groups of Artery Gears have their own factions, while those of the same production line are termed a "lineage". For example, the AmanoHa faction comprises of Chihaya, Chitose, Shyura and Kagura, who all consider themselves sisters.
• Cat Girl: Many Artery Gears have cat ears and tails.
  • Morris, a girl with actual cat ears, frequently gets mistaken for a member of Team Bobcat (a squad of Artery Gears with cat-inspired technological upgrades fitted), much to her frustration.
  • Nemophila and Verbena are cousins, and both have cat ears. While Nemophila has a tail, Verbena's tail appears to be artificial.
  • Katie and Meko of Team Bobcat have actual cat ears and tails in their maid skins.
• Clothing Damage: Nina's gets displayed prominently in a visual obtained from the Erica the Magical Girl event.
• Combat Medic: Hearin and Morris are said to be as good at shooting as they are at healing. In-game, Neisa fits the bill as well, being a healer whose heals scale off her attack stat.
• The Corruption: Whatever force creates puppets is shown to be this. Puppetisation can happen to any ordinary human or Artery Gear, transforming them into an incredibly powerful being that requires combat-fitted Artery Gears to take care of.
• Create Your Own Villain: The Rift Octopus was a former Frontier Artery Gear, who was used for experiments in producing ‘rift technology’. Their experiments worked a little too well, and she became one of the most dangerous Elite Mooks in the world.
• Darker and Edgier: Early in the story, when all seems bleak, the Commander manages to save the day, or Artery Gears that were thought to have been puppetised were revealed to have survived. Later, the story shifts to a darker tone. Entire squads of named characters are wiped out, graphic violence is shown onscreen, swear words start seeing usage, and even the Commander themselves becomes seriously injured.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Several Artery Gears have this as a part of their backstory. 04 walks around using prosthetics, maintains an aloof and cold demeanour, and her character story outright states she has depression.
• Divided We Fall: With the outbreak of the first Puppet War, humanity was also engaged in a civil war for resources and safe areas. All this accomplished was wiping themselves out faster. Humans in the present remark that this decision was pretty ‘stupid’.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Cream's cream is produced by her body and secreted by her 'core', and is very sticky and sweet. On top of that, a problem with her gear means her cream keeps leaking out of her...
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Used with the 3 Artery Gear core elements: red (Molten) is strong against green (Crystal), green is strong against blue (Thunder), and blue is strong against red.
• Eyepatch of Power:
  • Sirius is a student that's better than many graduates, and wears an eyepatch in her default skin. She takes it off in her 'After School' skin when she's relaxing.
  • Shyura is a psychopathic woman who is capable of smashing almost anything into pieces. She also wears a gray eyepatch.
• Fake Memories: The current Condor is not the original Condor. As part of the Genetic Override, the original Condor's cells and memories were implanted into her body to turn her into an Artery Gear.
• Floral Theme Naming: Many Artery Gears (most of them from Autoluna) are named after plants or flowers, including Rosemary, Acacia, Nemophila, Verbena, Angelica, Lewisia, Lobelia, Erica...
• French Maid Outfit: Meko and Katie have skins like this.
• Future Self Reveal: The powerful Puppet Master in the the Puella Magi Madoka Magica collab event, Encounter of Magical Girls, is shown to be Erika's future self. Although this fate is apparently unavoidable, due to Alice's time manipulation abilities always revealing fixed points, Erika is determined not to let the future destroy her chance to enjoy life and being a Magical Girl.
• Gender-Blender Name: Every Artery Gear is female, but some of them have distinctly masculine names such as Tony or Timy.
• Genki Girl: Despite the dreary setting, many of the girls still keep up a positive demeanor.
  • Morris is a cheerful, ditzy Combat Medic.
  • Mel still enjoys joking around even during battle, and maintains a bubbly and ditzy personality.
  • Cindy appears to be a young child, and is still able to keep giggling and laughing excitedly during combat.
  • Verbena is serious during missions, but once they are over, she will excitedly ask the commander if she can check out places nearby.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: One is created by Alice's time manipulation abilities in the Puella Magi Madoka Magica collab event, Encounter of Magical Girls.
• Healing Factor: Fiel has this power due to Component O.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The name of the Player Character, the Commander, is changeable and decided by the player.
• Humans Are Bastards: The main story provides many examples of this trope at work.
  • During the initial outbreak of the first Puppet War, the humans ended up in a civil war for resources instead of teaming up to fight against the Puppets.
  • Queen Lisa Autoluna, the human leader of Autoluna Sky Port, invites the homeless and other less fortunate people to live in the safe areas. While this decision gets presented in an inspiring speech, it is later revealed that she is planning to forcibly convert humans she deems unfit into Artery Gears, and could not care less if they all died in the war.
  • Continued from above: the more well-off humans are actually disgruntled that more people are given entry into the safe zone, viewing it as unfair as many had to pay much more to get here.
  • When a Puppet Master breaks into a safe zone, the residents are all quick to point fingers at each other, blaming each other for bringing it into the city. This only succeeds in causing even more chaos.
  • Autolunans view the battles between Artery Gears and Puppet Masters only as a source of entertainment. There are numerous tabloids and news reporters commentating on the war as if it was a sports game. Additionally, many articles make up untruthful headlines to make the Frontier seem like villains while painting Autoluna as a divine saviour.
  • Atlas discusses this trope, pointing out how often humans seem to fight each other even during times of great need.
• Improbably Female Cast: There is no given reason why every Artery Gear needs to be female. Yet, with the exception of the commander who is decided by the player, every single member of the cast is female.
• Inconsistent Dub: The English version of the game has inconsistent translations all over the place, including "The Union" vs. "Link Fleet", the flagship Autoland vs. Outlander, character name spellings, etc.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: In Episode 13, Nio takes full control of the Puppet Network, giving herself upgrades that let her take on the Mother of Luna, and brings everyone back in new forms. This incarnates Nio as [Factor] Nio, and Mel and Rela as [Mega Armor], starting a gameplay and story precedent for later [Factor] and [Mega Armor] versions of AGs down the line.
• Kabbalah: Invoked as the name of the Frontier's giant railgun.
• Kid Hero: Team Bobcat, who are mentioned to be very young by Artery Gear standards.
• Killer Robot: Even pure robots are not immune to Puppetization and can develop into Puppet Masters.
• Killed Off for Real: Despite the lighter tone of the earlier chapters, the main story isn’t afraid to get dark.
  • In the battle against the Iron Maiden, many Artery Gears die. These include named characters that can be obtained as gameplay units, such as Della, Yuyi, and Pepe.
  • In Episode 13, despite Della and Yuyi coming back to life in the last episode, Lede is shot in the head by Ivana disguised as a Frontier AG, and later, Atlas is shot with an arrow by Ivana again; because of her unique body created with the 1138 device, this renders her virtually human, unable to be fixed and dead. And as to why Fiel can't use Component O to revive them, Lisa had its power source turned off so the girl would have added herself to the body count in vain. Heck, the entire Union party plus Teufel, Eram, and Lobelia were confirmed dead, and it would have stuck were it not for Nio reviving everyone (though only those struck by Autoluna's Kill Sat, so Lede and Atlas remain dead).
• Little Bit Beastly: Many Artery Gears have animal attributes. These include foxes (Sirius), cats (Morris) and rabbits (Cream).
• Magical Girl: The Auto Magi faction are rumored to be Magical Girls in-universe. They are all young girls, their bodies are not mechanized like most Artery Gears, and their combat abilities are mysterious and tied to their powerful equipment.
• Male Gaze: All over the place, even when the girls are in serious combat situations. The camera in CGs loves to fixate on shots of Nio's chest and Rela's behind.
• Mecha: Artery Gears are girls that have their body fused with prosthetics, giving them the firepower needed to take out puppets. They are used as weapons to fight in the Puppet War.
• Mercy Kill Arrangement:
  • The original Condor, who has been turned into a Puppet Master, regains her sanity just long enough to ask her former best friend Milvus to kill her.
  • It's revealed in Episode 11 that during the First Puppet War, before AGs became common, human soldiers had to execute each other the moment they start Puppetizing. The standardized "New-style Blitzkrieg" tactic they used all but guarantees it, which is simply human wave tactics focused on pulling a Taking You with Me before soldiers fully Puppetized.
• Military School: The Academy of Dolls trains Artery Gears to get good grades and combat experience.
• My Sibling Will Live Through Me: Kagura, rebelling against being forced to become an emotionless order-following tool, switches places with her (emotionally functional) prototype clone Yamazakura and sacrifices herself on a suicide mission. It is her wish for Yamazakura to live on as "Kagura".
• Mysterious Past: The Commander has no known data on their identity, and they refuse to reveal anything about themselves. Nevertheless, their battle strategies and caring attitude towards the Artery Gears under their command wins them respect.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: 04, the fox, has no known name.
• Player Versus Player: This comes in the form of the 'exercise' mode. Each day, you get ten chances to challenge other players, and tiers are reset at the end of each week. Final rankings are calculated with the end of every season.
• Power Equals Rarity: Gear rarity ranges from 1* to 6*. The higher the rarity of the gear, the higher the value of the main stats, as well as number and value of substats.
• Purely Aesthetic Gender: The avatar that you select to represent you in-game has no effect on the plot or interactions with the girls.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: Atlas is an AI in charge of Frontier developed to command Artery Gears in battle with few mistakes. She also looks and acts entirely human, aside from being too logical at times.
• Shout-Out: The Fall of the Bifrost murder mystery event is an homage to the Ace Attorney games. Lampshaded in the "get my lawyer badge" dialogue option:
  Mel: Oh, I see. You're also going to do a spiky hair, and shout "Objection!", right?
  Rela: You... Zip your mouth, we might get sued.
• Super-Deformed: In the fleet and in combat, each Artery Gear is displayed in their chibi forms.
• Super-Strength: Every Artery Gear is much, much stronger than the average human. Just a few punches from Quinn are enough to weaken the commander severely.
• Tarot Motifs: The Purifier group of Artery Gears use Major Arcana as their titles: Goya "Le Diable", Suriel "La Mort", Iberis "La Justice", etc.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The fleet factions of the Frontier and the Union don't get along well. However, no matter how many disagreements happen, they still see eliminating the puppet threat as their top priority and will work together to achieve this goal.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Many Puppets are not aware they have become Puppetized and are no longer human. When an outside force finally makes them aware of this fact, they refuse to accept it.
• Training from Hell: The training that Hearin inflicts on her students is said to be extremely rigorous.
• Tsundere: Rela acts cold towards her friends, calling them idiots, dumb, and slow. However, when they are in danger, she will do everything she can to protect them. Mel’s apparent death via Puppetization is enough to cause her to have multiple emotional breakdowns, to the point Nio and Quinn refuse to let Rela into battle.
• Turned Against Their Masters: Played for Laughs in Run, Pavonis! The cat orbs produced on the ship launch a full-on revolt against the commander and Artery Gears. Except no one really takes them seriously, and view them as more of an annoyance than anything else.
• Victory Quote: Each Artery Gear has two that is displayed after you win a battle.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Condor and Milvus were this in the past. They turned every activity into a competition, frequently hurling insults at each other, but cared for each other all the same. The wishes of this original Condor drives Milvus to hunt down and banish any replacement Condors that were created as part of the Genetic Override project.
• Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: Erica and Nina have to balance their lives at school in Academy City and being part of the AutoMagi faction of Artery Gears.
• War Is Hell: It’s hinted at earlier, but the story begins to take a darker turn in the later chapters. Many named Artery Gears are killed in battle, and the psychological toll of losing so many comrades is discussed openly. The politics of the various human factions comes to a head, with one human citizen being branded a wanted fugitive for trying to expose Autoluna’s corruption. Even the Commander is stated to be exhausted from the constant battles in the Puppet War.
• We Used to Be Friends:
  • Milvus and Condor used to serve as part of the Harpya together, but a falling out led to Condor swearing revenge on Milvus.
  • "We Used to be Lovers", in this case. The Commander and Clarice used to be very close battle partners and fought their foes together. In the present, she seeks to undermine their successes and sabotage humanity’s efforts against the Puppets.
• White Hair, Black Heart:
  • Clarice is the Commander's former partner who now cooperates with Puppet Masters and seeks to kill them out of a grudge.
  • Downplayed in the case of Atlas, the leader of Frontier. She regularly makes cold, logical decisions based on what she calculates to be the most successful plan. Atlas is willing to sacrifice many Artery Gears in battle and regularly chides other characters for being too sentimental. Given that she’s an AI, this is a Justified Trope.
• Wrench Wench: Dean of the Firestor Miners mercenary faction is good at tinkering with spare parts and scraps. She even takes on an apprentice Wrench Wench, a young desert girl named Rigid.
• Zettai Ryouiki: Some character outfits include thigh-high stockings and a short skirt, notably Grace and Gray.

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