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A hero will fly again...note 
Baten Kaitos Origins, also known as Baten Kaitos II: Beginning of the Wings and the Heir of the Gods, is an Eastern RPG/Card Battle Game hybrid and the second game in the Baten Kaitos duology. Originally released for the Nintendo GameCube in 2006, it serves as a prequel for Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean.

Set 20 years prior to the first game, Origins follows Sagi, an elite soldier of the Dark Service of The Empire, who finds himself framed for the murder of the Emperor. He, along with his old friend Guillo - a sentient humanoid weapon animated by magic, flees from the pursuers, and is later joined by Milly, an enigmatic and spunky noblewoman. Together, the Power Trio starts to work under the command of the Empire's chief spymaster, to clear Sagi's name and unravel the conspiracy that strives to rid the world of the "Wings Of The Heart" in favor of soul-eating mechanization.

The game greatly revamps the battle system, most notably switching from turn-based order to Combatant Cooldown System. Instead of each character having their own card deck and unique weapons to attack, Origins has only one deck, shared by all three playable characters, as well as universal "attack magnus". Finishers have been replaced with special attacks, which can be used right off the bat, but now consume a shared MP meter. By chaining normal and special attacks the player can create EX Combos, that are far more powerful than individual attacks and often possess special effects. Defence magnus have been replaced with equipment system, special cards that persist through several attacks.


Tropes:

  • After-Combat Recovery: Your characters are fully healed after each battle. This is likely because of increased difficulty, as each encounter already can very well kill you.
  • Armored But Frail: Applies only to gameplay, in regards to Umbras and machina arma. When you fight them for the first time, their HP pool is tiny - in the hundreds, in fact. However, your attacks deal to them way less damage than normal. It's only when you get strong enough to damage them normally do they get actual HP pools, which are appropriatly large, and consistent with their defence.
  • Auto-Revive: Cross Pendant is an equipment magnus that automatically revives its wearer. It's less useful than it sounds, because only one equipment magnus can be used at a time, so using a weapon or armor would unequip it.
  • Batman Gambit: King Ladekahn comes up with a fairly detailed plan to escape the Nashira storehouse, which is being occupied by Imperial soldiers, based entirely on how he expects the soldiers to react.
  • Big "NO!":
    • Celsica, when Rambari is fatally wounded during confrontation in Cloudvents.
    • Milly, when Guillo sacrifices itself after the final battle.
  • Bittersweet Ending: At the end of the game Verus and Wiseman are both dead, Tarazed is destroyed, and Sagi marries Milly and leaves for Mira on their honeymoon, but Baelheit and Guillo are also dead and Geldoblame, driven insane by Verus's betrayal, has just been nominated emperor.
  • Boss in Mook Clothing:
    • Queen Alraunes have a lot of HP, hit hard, and can poison the entire party with Poison Breath attack. They can also use a Fast Ball Special with a Slave Balloona to deal very high damage to someone, doubly so if they're currently on fire.
    • Herculean Dragons have the highest HP among all non-unique enemies, hit the entire party by default, can buff their defences, heal themselves, and have the mighty Hercules Laser attack, which is all but guaranteed to knock the party member down, if not KO them outright. And in the Coliseum "Looming Danger" battle you have to fight two of them at once!
  • Bragging Rights Reward: The reward for completing the Pac-Man sidequest, permanent critical hits, is obtained by feeding Pac-Man every quest magnus in the game. By the time you get it, there's nothing left to do.
  • But Thou Must!: Usully played straight. Your answers may affect Relationship Values, but won't really alter the plot.
    • A particularly notable example comes from a Seph's party scene, where refusing the offer loops the dialogue back to the same choice. The offer in question is making a deal with the devil the Dark Brethren for power.
    • Averted at the Mintaka bombing scene, where you can say that you have no time to help the wounded civilians. Sagi will actually agree with you, although it does lower the Relationship Values.
  • Collapsing Lair: Tarazed breaks apart and falls out of the sky after the final battle, mostly because you've just destroyed four afterlings, about half of its power supply, and Verus-Wiseman took the other four to forms his new body. If Verus-Wiseman doesn't appear, then afterlings still dissappear, implying that Sagi "set them free", just like with the rest.
  • Collection Sidequest: The game has you collect Sedna magnus - pieces of a town, scattered across the world.
  • Continuity Nod: The description for the Power Helmet mentions grains of rice stuck to it, referencing the helmet's use in the uncooked rice->rice recipe in EWatLO.
  • Crucified Hero Shot: Following The Reveal of Guardian Spirit's true nature Sagi is shown chained to a slab of stone with his arms spread out. In the Japanese version it was an actual cross instead.
  • Darker and Edgier: The game is far darker that its predecessor. Our hero starts as an agent of The Empire on an assassination mission, then becomes involved into its cutthroat politics, repeatably tries and fails to stop promachination on several islands, all the while witnessing a depressing story of several people in a situation frighteningly similar to his own.
  • Darkest Hour: Following the return from Anuenue, the party is invited to hear another round of speeches at Mintaka. It all spirals down from there. Shanath, in a plot to frame "heart-wings" as a liability, brings Gena on the scene, and has her wings torn out, which prompts Sagi to fly into Unstoppable Rage and transform into an afterling himself. Then we are sent to the past, see the deaths of Seph and company, and learn that the Guardian Spirit is, in fact, not a Spirit, but a piece of Malpercio. Then past Guillo shows up and pierces Marno/Sagi through the heart. The entire ordeal end with Sagi locked in chains, in a Crucified Hero Shot.
  • Dark Reprise: A slow, ominous version of the Mintaka theme from Eternal Wings is played over The Stinger in Origins.
  • Death or Glory Attack: Later in the game, MP Burst becomes this. It allows you to pull off a strong Relay Combo, but if something goes wrong and the enemy survives, your MP meter will be unavailable for some time. Doesn't sound that bad, but during late-game your only effective healing items will require at least 1 MP. Now watch how this half-dead boss, who just took Apotheosis to the face, murders your party while they can't heal.
  • Demoted to Extra: The entire island of Mira is mostly absent from the game, because it's currently stuck in a dimensional rift.
  • Diabolus ex Nihilo: Wiseman's origins are completely unknown. He is completely unlike every other entity in the series, even the Dark Brethren are less alien than him. What does he really want? Where did his Celestial Body came from? Was he ever human? He does refer to himself as "We", and is seen absorbing humans' "hearts"/souls, so he may be a Mind Hive. Beyond that, we know nothing about him.
  • Difficult, but Awesome:
    • The entire battle system. You better learn to pull out long, devastating EX Combos, or else you'll be stuck ineffectually chipping away at the enemy.
    • More specifically, Milly's "Secret Queen" and "Secret Queen II" combos. They require the enemy to be downed, which can be hard to set up, but can deal out tremendous damage with only one or two cards.
  • Disc-One Nuke: You're supposed to discover EX Combos through random experimentation. If you somehow find out about them early on, you will have much easier time against early bosses. The advantage evaporates once you reach the second disc, as it is designed around you already knowing about these. The Holoholobird will see to that.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: When trading with Inca Rose, she says you seem like the type with "a nice magnus package" and that she'll show you hers if you show her yours. Upon canceling a trade, she'll remark that you didn't last long enough, and she'll treat you real nice next time.
  • Doomed Hometown: Downplayed. Sheratan isn't destroyed, no one even dies, but after the party returns from their investigation at Lake Botein, they find the town occupated by imperial army, and fight a Hopeless Boss Battle against Valara's machina arma. She then blasts off a chunk of the island, which Sagi still finds despicable enough to start working against her side.
  • Double Entendre: After Sagi agrees to find pieces of the Celestial Tree for Lolo, she glomps him. Sagi's reaction?
    Sagi: I'll... get wood. [Beat] At the tree! Tree wood!
  • Duel Boss: Sagi vs. Baelheit. It's especially unusual, given that the game's battle system is designed around having all three party members, and your hand will most likely be littered with unusable by Sagi special attacks. It's not unheard of that the players create their first and only non-default deck solely for this battle.
  • Eldritch Location: Sedna is a benign example. It's a town that looks like it's made from plasticine, and many items inside houses seem to be sentient. In fact, it looks like it belongs in Mira, and it's similarly situated somewhere in the outer dimension.
  • Evil Versus Evil: Wiseman is clearly evil, but so are the Dark Brethren, who give Seph and his friends the power to defeat him.
  • Facial Composite Failure: In Pherkad the party finds out that The Empire put up some posters around the city. On these posters Guillo has a beak, Milly has way too much makeup, and Sagi has a very creepy look with shadowed eyes. The descriptions on them accuse Guillo of kidnapping children, Milly of rampant kleptomania, and Sagi of marriage fraud. Each of them is hilariously offended by the depiction, and, in fact, holding it decreases the character's maximum HP.
  • Failed a Spot Check: Sagi, when you let the mysterious stranger you find in the Emperor's room walk free, it might behoove you to notice the fact that the Emperor is dead.
  • Fake Difficulty: Many bosses and some late-game enemies have multi-target attacks which, instead of hitting all three characters with a single powerful attack, hit the party at random with multiple weaker attacks. This is fairly manageable if all three party members are up (unless it unloads most attacks on one party member), but if one of your members is down, it still hits the same number of times, often utterly annihilating the party. Translation: Unless you like sudden, unexpected party wipes, prioritize revival over anything else.
  • Fireworks of Victory: Sagi begins competing in the coliseum specifically because a bedridden little girl - the granddaughter of the coliseum's proprietor - wants to see fireworks. And the way to get them? Becoming the coliseum's champion.
  • Foregone Conclusion: The main plot of the game is Verus and Baelheit competing with each other to be elected Emperor of Alfard. Of course, anyone who's played the first game already knows that 20 years later, neither will have the throne, and Geldoblame, Verus' inconspicuous aid, will be Emperor instead.
  • The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Used to great effect towards the end of the game, where Sagi is caught in a trap that locks his heart and effectively breaks his bond with the guardian spirit (you). A menu pops up giving you responses to his pleas for help... but you are unable to select any of them.
  • "Freaky Friday" Flip: Sagi can temporarily switch bodies with certain Greythornes by using some saltwater on them. Eternal Wings explains the connection between saltwater and Greythornes.
  • Gambit Roulette: Verus' plan relies on Sagi developing his malideiter powers enough to defeat afterlings and machina arma - a process he has zero control over. Failing that, he orders to have Gena's wings pulled out hight in front of Sagi, counting on him to fly into Unstoppable Rage and become an afterling, to smear Baelheit's name as an afterling exterminator.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation:
    • Characters in the Age Of The Gods cannot see or hear Guillo and Milly. However, their attacks still affect enemies there, and enemies are perfectly capable of seeing and attacking them, despite nobody else noticing their presence.
    • After Sagi transforms into an afterling and is transported back for the final confrontation with past Guillo, Milly and Guillo are there in battle, despite being nowhere near Sagi when Mental Time Travel kicked in. But who would want to fight past Guillo alone? A couple of cutscenes later, Milly does mention that they were both sent back with him.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration:
    • You, as the guardian spirit, occasionally answer questions asked by the characters using a menu. At a few key moments, you see the menu while a character is talking to their own, different spirit, and the game answers automatically for that spirit.
    • Near the end of the game, Sagi is caught in a trap that incapacitates his heart, and as such you aren't allowed to select any options, despite being given the menu.
  • Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: If you go back to the past and kill Wiseman, then, near the end of the game, he returns and fuses with a defeated Verus to serve as the True Final Boss. There is no foreshadowing or buildup whatsoever for this.
  • Gone Horribly Right: Eventually, Baelheit's research. He tried to make artificial spiriters by bonding pieces of Malpercio to human hearts. He must have been impressed when Sagi, one of the subjects, bonded with a piece of Malpercio, trashed all his machina arma and kicked his ass.
  • Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Umbras and machina arma are way too strong for the party to defeat until the last quarter of the game. Because of this, after you deal enough damage, they just knock down the party with one strong attack (frequently the same they used in the presceding battle), and the party acts as if they were defeated. In fact, machina arma are Armored But Frail in gameplay terms, and when you become strong enough to actually go past their defence, their actual HP are many times higher than the portion you took off the first time around.
  • He Who Must Not Be Seen: Marno is a major figure in the story, being a member of Seph's party, but he's never seen. Instead, Sagi takes his place, and the other characters talk with him as if he was Marno. This is because his "Guardian Spirit" is actually a fragment of Marno's soul, and Sagi is experiencing Marno's memories. The swordsman in the intro cinematic is most likely Marno, but even then, his face is mostly concealed by a Cool Mask.
  • Incendiary Exponent: The Balloona enemies in can set themselves on fire, considerably raising their attack power. This comes to a head with the armored versions of this species, which tote around flaming spiked armor.
  • Item Crafting: You eventually get "magnus mixers" - special magnus which can combine two quest magnus into one after a set number of battles. If the recipe has more than two components, then the mixed component will turn into an exclamation sign, signifying that you need to add next ingredient. Fight some more battles, and the mixing will fail, spoiling the ingredients.
  • Just Before the End: These weird visions that Sagi gets are from the Age of the Gods, shortly before the war that ruins the earth breaks out, forcing people to seek refuge in the Sky.
  • Leaking Can of Evil: The Umbras are a byproduct of Malpercio's body parts which were not sealed into End Magnus. Some of these end up in humans, animals, or even plants, and can subtly influence their host. If they experience a particularly strong emotional pain, they end up transforming into an Umbra/afterling.
  • Limit Break: When the MP meter is at level 5, you can trigger MP Burst. It temporarily gives you infinite MP, allowing for your longest and strongest combo strings. Unfortunately, this effect lasts only as long as you keep the Relay Combo going, empties the meter completely, and prevents you from getting MP again for some time after its end.
  • Load-Bearing Boss: Defeating the final boss causes the dungeon to implode and fall from the sky. Justified if you fight the True Final Boss, who absorbs the fortress' power source and actually keeps it from falling during the battle. If not, then the power source mysteriously disappears during scene transition, and the rest of the scene plays out the same way.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: The game heavily implies that Verus is Sagi's father if you do a certain sidequest.
  • Marathon Level: Tarazed, the final dungeon. Four different "blocks", each of which is a maze where every room looks alike. Just to add to that, to complete every block, you have to complete an actual maze room, which are all maddeningly difficult. And the nearest save point is inconveniently located. And its narrow corridors are full of roaming enemies. The only good thing about this level is the music.
  • Masculine, Feminine, Androgyne Trio: The main party includes Sagi, a boy, as the main character, Milly, a runaway noblewoman who accompanies him, and Guilo, Sagi's oldest friend and a puppet animated by ancient magic who is voiced by both a man and a woman.
  • Mirroring Factions: Promachination vs. promagnation. Both campaigns are at the opposite ends of the spectrum but they both end up demanding people to give up essential parts of themselves (body for promagnation and hearts for promachination) in order to supposedly ascend to superior beings and will not take no for an answer.
  • Money for Nothing: After your main deck is mostly set, you won't need to buy anything anymore. The equipment in shops is weaker than what you can find, and they don't sell special attacks or artifacts. The only thing that you can spend your money on is upgrades of existing equipment, and even then it's not that necessary even for Superbosses.
  • Money Spider: In stark contrast to the previous game, you can get money from dead monsters.
  • Monster Arena: In the Coliseum you can fight monsters, generally from previous locations. Unless you fight them at the earliest possible moment, they are hilariously easy to beat. Advanced battles, on the other hand...
  • Mood Whiplash: The ending, which goes from the escape from Tarazed and apparent death of Guillo, to a heartwarming scene between Milly and Sagi, and finally to Milly going Tsundere on Sagi and a borderline "Everybody Laughs" Ending.
  • Musical Nod: At one point you hear an orchestral version of "The True Mirror", a theme from Eternal Wings, as a sign that you're fighting an actual spiriter.
  • Nintendo Hard: The second disc greets you with the Holoholobird - a truly brutal boss, that outright requires abuse of EX Combos. The difficulty goes upward from here, reaching its peak at the Godcraft aka past Guillo.
  • No Endor Holocaust: Tarazed, a continent-sized airship full of people, explodes and falls out of the sky. The fate of the people onboard is never hinted at. At least the city of Vega is empty while you escape from it.
  • Non-Standard Game Over: During the Heart-to-Heart scene you can get a game over by selecting the wrong dialogue option, although it's fairly obvious which. It's a result of you, a piece of Malpercio, taking control away from Sagi, after which he is assimilated into your soul, since you are so much stronger than him.
  • Not the Fall That Kills You…: Near the end of the game Milly is blasted off of the Tarazed by an explosion and Sagi flies down after her and grabs her close. The two are falling at high speeds... Only to be saved by the timely arrival of the Sfida. However, such a fall should have still killed them. It could be justified by the Wings of the Heart, but they are not shown in this scene.
  • Now, Where Was I Going Again?: The problem is avoided with party members' journals. Weirdly, each event is narrated only by one party member, meaning that each of them cares to write down only about one third of major events.
  • Offscreen Inertia: There are three Optional Bosses that are characters who, earlier in the story, were unbeatable. They all remain in the same place you last saw them. Justified by them staying in one place and promachinating it being their job.
  • Offstage Villainy: You hear a lot about the Dark Brethren, but the only thing they do onscreen is grant Seph and co. their power. And it's in fact only used against actually villainous and proactive Wiseman and his mindless minions.
  • One-Hit Kill: Bombs can one-hit-kill pretty much anything, but have a chance of misfiring and damaging the user instead.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Near the end of the game, when Milly is preparing to make a Heroic Sacrifice to save Sagi from a machina trap, she has a quiet talk with Guillo about her feelings towards Sagi. Guillo quickly picks up that something's not right.
  • Optional Boss:
    • Machina arma users - Nasca, Heughes, and Valara. After you become able to fight machina arma, you can go back and trash their toys - but there's nothing that forces you to. Then they decare that they will fight you even without machina arma. It's up to you, if you accept the challenge and kill them, or walk away and spare them instead.
    • Wiseman and Black Dragon, who can be found on the battlefields of Atria following the plot-based visit here. There's nothing that even hints at the boss, and yet he is a prerequisite for the True Final Boss.
  • Permanently Missable Content: This is pointedly downplayed as much as possible, compared to the first game's insanity. Only 1 Field Guide entry and 3 Quest Magnus can be lost forever. That sole Field Guide entry belongs to Ballet Dancer on the Construction Site, and that's a sizable dungeon, making it unlikely that you'll miss it.
  • Physical God: Gods from the legend are actually humans who became too reliant on their powers of hearts and ended up waging the war that destroyed most of the world.
  • Player Tic: In-Universe, sort of. The other spirits are similar to you, the player. And when you see them choosing an answer to their spiriter, their cursor moves several times between options, even if it's obvious that they decided what to say beforehand.
  • Precision F-Strike: Sagi has this to say to Shanath after the latter ripped Gena's wings off, which shows how royally pissed Sagi is.
    Sagi: Go to hell, you son of a bitch! You hurt my mother!
  • Pronoun Trouble: While in the Japanese version you can choose the Guardian Spirit's gender, this option was axed from the Western release. As a result, this trope is averted, and characters refer to the Spirit as male, often substituting corresponding pronouns in place of his name. It ends up being a subtle Foreshadowing, since later it's revealed that the "Guardian Spirit" actually used to be a human, Marno, a member of Malpercio. Marno is deliberately hidden from view, and the Japanese version doesn't set in stone Marno's gender, but localisation chooses to make Marno a man.
  • Puzzle Boss: Quaestor Verus. If even one of his flunkies is still alive, it'll shield him from damage. Nothing like assembling The Apotheosis just to have him revive one right before Sagi's turn comes up.
  • Rocket-Tag Gameplay: Even endgame bosses can go down from one strong Relay Combo, but even random enemies can rather easily take down your party members. The main difficulty comes from setting up this combo and gaining five MP for MP Burst, while keeping everyone alive.
  • Science Is Bad: Subverted. Promachination is an objectively bad thing, which interferes with people's souls for the sake of casting away the "dangerous and unreliable" power of the Heart. However, its opposite, promagnation, is even worse. Its followers turn into mindless fanatics, who want to cast away their bodies and become pure magnus - even if it means leaving their whole life behind. Plus, the party uses a machina ship, and Milly is a borderline Full-Conversion Cyborg, who nonetheless is as human as anyone - proof that neither extremity is correct, and science and soul can coexist.
  • Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Played with in regards with "wrong" part, albeit it still works out well in the end. Once Sagi unlocks Marno's power, you can travel back to Atria and kill Wiseman. Doing so unlocks the True Final Boss, which is a returned Wiseman. It's possible that Children of the Earth disposed of Wiseman in the "proper" history, and your intervention allowed him to somehow survive until the present. The party then finishes him off for good.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Well, Children of the Earth think that they seal a great evil into End Magnus when they kill Seph's party. While wielders of this power were good people, their bodies are now claimed by the Dark Brethren, making them dangeous to keep around.
  • Sequel Hook: A recursive one. A wounded, mentally unstable Geldoblame staggers back to Mintaka and is greeted by the senate, who elect him in desperation. Cue the beginning of Geldoblame's descent into a power-mad dictator. Anyone who's played Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean knows how that ends.
  • Sequential Boss: Quaestor Verus near the end of the game. He starts by siccing two waves of his flunkies at you. They are weak, but can wear down your party a bit. On the other hand, you can charge your MP on them. Notably, it's the only non-Coliseum battle to use this mechanic. You can even hear the announcer declaring "rounds".
  • Shoot the Medic First: Holoholo chicks can heal the main bird for a large amount of HP. Make sure that they are dead before going for the kill.
  • Sprint Meter: Heartwing Dash has Sagi move at a high speed using his Wings of the Heart. If you exaust the gauge on the top on the screen, however, he will become tired, forcing you to wait for him to catch his breath, and then walking at a snail's pace until the meter fully recharges. In dungeons the meter depletes faster - apparently running from the enemy is a huge strain of one's Heart.
  • Status Effects: Stun, poison, burning, frozen, sleeping, blindness, and knockdown.
  • The Stinger: After the credits a wounded and mentally unstable Geldoblame stumbles into Mintaka, where he is found by senators, who, oblivious to his state, decide to give him the Emperor's trone, to avoid a Succession Crisis. Geldoblame goes full Laughing Mad in reponse, sporting the same expression as on one of his most distinctive portraits from Eternal Wings.
  • Summation Gathering: When Sagi investigates a series of terrorist bombings, he presents the evidence to the whole village by gathering them inside a room. He has to do it multiple times, as villagers keep finding ways to doubt his conclusions.
  • Torture Cellar: An NPC alludes to it, but it’s only possible to see it for yourself once you’ve learned that Quaestor Verus was Evil All Along. At that point, if you go back to Verus's estate, you can pass through a door that was never accessible before, previously blocked by a Mook who claimed was where Verus met with his guardian spirit, and find out exactly how someone so evil kept up the façade for so long.
  • Town with a Dark Secret: The Mining village of Azha. despite how happy it seems when you first visit it, you later learn that the townspeople are being worked to death by The Empire, and are currently harboring a terrorist.
  • True Final Boss: The game's normal Final Boss is Quaestor Verus, which can feel a bit anticlimatic. Beat a specific Superboss, though, and after Verus dies, a returned Wiseman fuses with him and four afterlings into Verus-Wiseman, an inhuman monstrosity with bird-like legs, Wolverine Claws and two pairs of wings.
  • Unintentionally Unwinnable: The Holoholobird attacks the party just after a disc change, which includes a save prompt. If you save over your only save file and can't beat the boss, you're pretty much softlocked.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can choose to kill Nasca, Heughes, and Valara after defeating them. Sparing them opens up extra cutscenes where they help Sagi and Milly escape Tarazed as it falls from the sky.
  • Villainous Friendship: Valara shares a genuinely close bond with Nasca and Heughes.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Guillo and Milly don't really get along, with Milly constantly calling Guillo a "dingbat", and Guillo often describing Milly as some sort of unspeakable ancient evil. Despite that, they eventually grow to care about each other
  • Wake-Up Call Boss:
    • Giacomo is the first proper boss battle, and he packs Thrashingale - a powerful finisher. If you're unlucky, he can unleash 300+ damage with a full combo and finisher, more that enough to KO a party member. To make matters worse, you fight him with two party members - Milly is here, but only as an AI ally.
    • The Holoholobird is a mid-game example. It deals vicious damage, it knocks you down, it summons reinforcements, it heals itself. Start of the disc 2 is the point where Origins leaves "rather challenging" and dives headfirst into Nintendo Hard territory.
  • The War Sequence: The Battlefields of Atria is an endless burning battlefield, where Seph's party tries to make their way to Wiseman, slaughtering brainwashed residents of Cujam on their way.
  • Wham Line: This Pieda's line, when her friends discuss a name for their group. This is the first time you hear this name not in the context of "Wicked God", instantly cluing both the player and the protagonists that the legendary war is not what it seems.
    Pieda: Well, how about Malpercio, then?
  • Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: The collective populace of Azha feels this way about the Mourning Mistral.
  • Zeroth Law Rebellion: The Dark Service meets their demise when their paramachina get upgraded, gain sentience, and begin to question why they take orders.

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