In the year 2051, humanity is on the verge of extinction following an alien invasion that started nearly fifteen years ago. With their backs to the wall, the last twelve humans awaken a mysterious Super-Soldier known as "B★RS" (or "Stella") as part of their last desperate push against the alien menace.
The game features an all-star Japanese voice cast, including Maaya Sakamoto (as B★RS), Tomokazu Sugita, Hiroshi Kamiya, Miyuki Sawashiro, Mai Nakahara and many more. The music is composed by Manabu Namiki.
Nippon Ichi licensed the game for release in English. After over a year of waiting and numerous rumours that the game had become Vapor Ware, it was finally released on the Playstation Store in the US and EU with the original Japanese voice cast.
A manga adaptation for the game was also released, further expanding parts of the lore which were not (or briefly) discussed in the game.
Video Links: Trailer #1
and Trailer #2.
Tropes found in this game:
- Achievement System: A built-in one is used for unlocking new content, including Skills. Some of them, such as the Bike-related ones, can border on
That One Achievement. - Actor Allusion:
- SAZA: An old man voiced by Yosuke Akimoto who fights using Kung-Fu in a giant suit of armor. Sounds familiar.
- Miyuki Sawashiro voices the characters whom the incarnations of B★RS wanted to protect but failed in the end. These are Dead Master from the animated series, and Nana Gray from the game.
- A Day in the Limelight: By completing specific Records, you can unlock character episode cutscenes for the Apostles and WRS, each one focusing on a character's antics. Some may border into Rule of Funny, like WRS accidentally neblading herself.
- Advancing Boss of Doom: One of the enemies takes the form of a sentient wall with guns slapped onto it.
- Aerith and Bob: Range from Bob, Hassan, Alexei, Xiao Ming; to Phobos, Rothcall, Black★Rock Shooter; to MEFE, LLWO, and XNFE. There are some justifications about the alien's name, but have you ever met a guy named Rothcall? It's revealed in Chapter 2 that Rothcall is his last name and Phobos is a code name he prefers to go by. Black★Rock Shooter is also a code name, B★RS's true name is later revealed to be Stella
- After-Combat Recovery: The Aftercare passive abilities have a chance of healing Stella after battles.
- After the End: The alien invasion has decimated Earth.
- All There in the Manual: A booklet from the limited edition of the game details several events and plot that happened before the start of the game, mostly on the alien invasion, and the cloning timeline project of Professor Gibson and the UEF.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: A battle-torn outfit, school uniform, two variations of the Gray battle gear, a bunny outfit, and a summer outfit. Not that anyone is complaining.
- Angst: The protagonist and Nana Gray have their moments:Gray: So you have forgotten everything, including The Professor's affection for you. Unlike you, The Professor didn't even give me a name. I'm not a beloved like you.B★RS: I'm... sorry.Gray: Don't be. Otherwise... I won't be able to forgive you. Come over here. *cue a scene of B★RS and Gray on the bed*
- Anti-Frustration Features: All Stages have the Golden Hunt Challenges that require you to seek out a number of Golden Dawns scattered throughout the map. While the game requires varying increments depending on the size of the map (3,6,9,12 or 4,8,12), the largest stages have Golden Dawns that exceed the maximum number of kills required for the challenges. This is practically useful in the maze-like 4th Stage, Mt Fuji where there are 16 Golden Dawns, but the game only requires you to kill 12 for the last Golden Hunt challenge of that stage, saving you time and effort from exploring the entire map looking for them.
- The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People: Prior to the alien invasion, the game's backstory states that there is still war in the Middle East. It's only when the apocalyptic alien threat emerged that all ongoing wars between humanity came to an end, and that all military assets are united under the UEF.
- Arbitrary Gun Power: The amount of damage dealt is calculated based on the upgrade of your cannon as well as your skills. While the "Charged Shot" skill variants indeed deal greater damage than normal shots, the "Gatling" skills deal lesser damage per shot than the normal one. And lastly, "Sniper" skills deal moderate damage, and only stun the enemy for most of the time.
- Arc Words: "The Game". It is mentioned several times by the Big Bad, and also appears on-screen just before you fight each of the Apostles.
- The Assimilator: The aliens' custom of "neblading", which essentially means to consume another living being and absorb their memories. It's actually the crux of the entire plot.
- Astral Checkerboard Decor: Like the music video, this game makes use of white/black "Chess" checkerboard backgrounds in the game's art, save file icons, and even the last room of the final stage.
- Avenging the Villain: LLWO for MEFE.
- Awesome, but Impractical: The ultimate Blade skill BB Genocide is mostly this. It boasts massively improved damage compared to its predecessor, the Iksa Blade, and also hits all enemies. However, it still only deals maximum damage to stunned enemies, the same quirk that Blade Kill and Iksa Blade had, and the only other skill that inflicts Stun is the Snipe skills, which only hit single enemies (and the stun wears off fairly quickly anyways). Combined with a cooldown time of three minutes in a game where most battles don't last half as long, it's more or less a glorified Hammer skill (also hits all enemies, but for normal damage) save for boss battles.
- Back from the Brink: The trailer shows awakened B★RS fighting alien robot alongside human soldiers.
- Backtracking: You'll be replaying the same area but with different objectives every time, even in story missions! If one part of an intersection is blocked but you can see a path behind it on the map, expect to come back to that point sometime later.
- Badass Army: The Earth defense force took eight out of the 15 Apostles. Considering the kind of the story, that's quite an achievement.
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: B★RS has no qualms about being on the moon.
- Beat Them at Their Own Game: An inverted case where the villains use the heroes' weapons. When the Apostles learned of the existence of nuclear weapons, they decided to steal those and nuke humanity's populated cities. This tactic killed two-thirds of the population within a span of 10 days, with the disastrous event being known throughout history as "10 days of self-destruction".
- Beam-O-War: In MZMA's Quick Time Event, he and Stella will simultaneously fire their laser beams, creating an energy orb in the middle.
- Beam Spam: LLWO's Quick Time Event sequence is a barrage of beams being fired by him and Stella.
- BFS: MZMA. Some Skills can also transform the Rock Cannon into this.
- Bittersweet Ending: In New Game Plus, finishing the "?"-marked missions makes Nana survive. Humankind still goes extinct, though.
- Bloodless Carnage: Justified for the Armaments since they are purely made out metal and act like machines. But for the humanoid characters like the PSS, Apostles, and the Grays, there are no rendered blood regardless of how they get badly damaged, even in cutscenes.
- Cap:
- Your maximum Level is 50, and once you reach that, your current EXP will be set to 99,999.
- You can only carry 5 of each consumable item, so hoarding is not possible in this game.
- Cerebus Syndrome: Once the Draco crashed and all of the PSS members die, the source of comic relief goes away and the story becomes more serious and dramatic.
- Charged Attack: Of the "Collect" type. The Striker guns on the Black Trike require you to fill up a meter by defeating Armaments before the guns can be used.
- Checkpoint Starvation: Unlike the Story missions, Free Play mode does not offer you the chance to save your game in the middle of the run, as the Blue Terminals are nowhere to be found. While there are Yellow Terminals that replenish Stella's HP, you still cannot manually save your gave, leave and continue where you left off. This means that in order to save progress to any Challenge in Free Play mode, one must play through the start of the map, up until winning the Apostle boss fight at the end, and then saving at the Mission Select menu only after the previous mission has been completed.
- Clothing Damage: The Lost All costume. You get it when, well, all is lost.
- Colourful Theme Naming: Black★Rock Shooter, Nana Gray, White Rock Shooter.
- Concept Art Gallery: You get unlockable concept arts that can be viewed in the library after completing various levels and challenges.
- Covers Always Lie: Nana's official artwork used in the game's covers shows her wielding a sword. However, she is never seen using swords in-game, as she uses a handgun named Seven Shots.
- Cool Bike: The Piggy Ninja. Despite its ridiculously lame name, it's extremely similar to the one in the original B★RS PV. It got renamed to Black Trike in the translation. Better than Piggy Ninja, at least. It's lampshaded too, since the mission is still named "Operation Piggy Ninja", and there's a dialogue option to be confused by the strange name.
- Cool Plane: The Draco. Which is like a huge, carbon-steel composite stealth bomber.
- Cutscene Power to the Max: The opening/introductory 2D-animated full-motion video that also serves as one of the game's official trailers. It shows actions that cannot be performed in-game:
- Stella moving towards an Armament in the blink-of-an-eye, firing her cannon at Point Blank range. You can only dodge sideways in-game, not forwards or backwards. Also, you are fixed to a specific arc when in combat, and cannot freely control your character's positioning.
- Stella jumping and shooting her cannon at at enemy. This is probably the most egregious example, as you cannot manually jump at all (only in context-sensitive platforming segments). And while there are indeed skills that make Stella jump and shoot her cannon, the in-game animation plays out entirely different, and the skill is an AoE and not of the single-target variant.
- Death from Above: Skills like Photon Shower will have Stella fire her cannon from above.
- Defeat Equals Explosion: The Armaments, obviously since they are all machines.
- Department of Redundancy Department: One objective in San Francisco mentions "Release the Golden Gate Gate". It's not a translation error though, as it would mean opening a gate in Golden Gate, San Francisco.
- Double-Meaning Title: The Game refers to both Black★Rock Shooter's first video game outing, and to the 'game' that Sing Love is orchestrating in an effort to neblade a perfect clone of herself.
- Downer Ending:
- Oh sure, the world is saved from the aliens, but by that point it's pointless because humankind is extinct. And B★RS is doomed to spend the rest of her life alone. Mission Clear!
- The ecosystem gets better, if the couple of polar bears is any indication. According to the events, it said that polar bears went extinct on August 31, 2022 before the invasion, yet we find them here. This could mean that B★RS and the other humans were wrong about being the only ones left and there are probably more still out there.
- Dub Name Change:
- Piggy Ninja —> Black Trike for the bike.
- A lot of the skills also got renamed from their Japanese meanings in the official English translation:
- In SZZU and CRKY's Skills: Yellow Tiger Strike Drive —> Yellow Tiger Chemotactic
- In LLWO's Skills: Brigade-Style Air Conquering Kai —> Air Conquer EX / Mental Concentration —> Focus Shadow
- In SAHA's Skills: Pneumatic Retsuden Machine Fist —> Machine Sky Fist
- Encounter Repellant: A passive skill prevents Armaments from chasing you, by staying in place, and it is aptly named "Stealth". However, you can still manually trigger encounters if you make in contact with them
- Enemy Summoner: The Generators endlessly spawn Armaments from the ground until destroyed.
- Escort Mission: One of Nana EX missions. If an enemy, ANY enemy touches the escortee, it's instant Game Over. Also made more aggravating by the fact that Nana is faking insanity and walks straight into enemies while weaponless.
- Evolving Title Screen: Once you've unlocked the True Ending, the game's title screen background changes into a view of the blue sky. The background music also changes with it.
- Flash Step:
- Stella's in-game dodge mechanic is a very fast side-step.
- Also demonstrated in the intro video, where Stella evades an Armament's laser by phasing out and seemingly teleporting a short distance forward.
- Some of the Apostles also instantly teleport whenever they move during specific phases, such as when MZMA creates decoys of himself, or when LLWO activates his Focus Shadow skill.
- Flat "What": The perfect description for B★RS's face when she obeys Nana's orders to "Say woof."
- Flawed Prototype: The very first clone of Sing Love, codenamed "GRAY 1" has been deployed into combat on January 2034. While she has an excellent combat capability, the clone suffers from having poor memory retention, and the tendency to become immobile.
- Flunky Boss: The Generators, but the most notable instance is XNFE and her goddamned flying bunny-eared shoot-y pink triangle drones which she throws at you ad nauseam.
- Fun with Acronyms: Subverted and Lampshaded by Rothcall when he explains to Stella what their group stands for, and reminds her not to speak the word closest to the acronym.PSS doesn't mean "piss" or something. It stands for "Primary Support Service".
- Genre Mashup: The game mixes Third-Person Shooter with RPG mechanics such as leveling, equipments, skillsets and even side quests. There's also some sort of a driving mechanic in some missions with the bike.
- Godzilla Threshold: Before the events of the game, humanity was still able to repel the first two waves of the alien invasion. However in 2051, the aliens began their 3rd wave of invasion with numbers of Armaments greater than the first two. On the 25th of September, the remaining 12 UEF members, who were also the last men on Earth, woke Stella 3 years earlier than planned due to the urgency of the situation.
- Golden Ending: If you complete New Game Plus. Nana's death turned out to be a Disney Death. She survives the end of the game with B★RS, although beyond that, the actual outcome remains the same.
- Guide Dang It!: The forest map of Mt. Fuji is made up of numerous interconnected crossroads, and if you don't rely on the map, there are no in-game indicators to point directions in Free Play mode. What's worse, the level design can be pretty much confusing and most crossroads don't actually match that of their "simplified" appearance in the map. This can even cause players to easily get lost in the 4th Stage.
- Heal Thyself: In this case, Hand Waved as "nanomachines".
- Homing Projectile: The variants of the Chaser Gun ability fire up to four energy orbs that home on the nearest enemy from the cursor.
- Hope Spot: The Aliens momentarily stopped all further attacks and invasions on the year 2043, making humanity think that the war is over. Unbeknownst to humanity, there is a third wave incoming.
- Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: A downplayed case. The alien who goes by the identity of Sing Love starts living in San Francisco on December 24, 2031, where most of the game takes place.
- In Name Only: "Dead Master" in this game is just a name for a series of giant scythe-wielding mooks.
- Injured Player Character Stage: The "........" mission in Moscow where your outfit is blown to pieces and your weapons are broken. The game makes you walk a limping B★RS/Stella slowly through a blizzard, and there is no music throughout the whole sequence.
- Kill Enemies to Open: Comes in two flavors with varying requirements:
- Parts of the stages will sometimes be blocked by a red sigil named Territory Seal, requiring you to defeat the armaments with a red kill mark before proceeding.
- There are also Territory Box barricades that require you to destroy every armament in the area.
- La Résistance: PSS, of which B★RS is a member/ultimate weapon.
- Last of His Kind: B★RS and eleven others are the remnants of humanity. In the normal ending, B★RS is this. In the Golden Ending, B★RS and Nana are this.
- Level Grinding: The player is encouraged to level-up Stella in the Free Play modes of every Stage, as subsequent Main Story missions and Extra sidequests have gaps on their recommended levels.
- Level-Up Fill-Up: Leveling up entirely refills your HP, beneficial when fighting waves of Armaments.
- Loads and Loads of Sidequests: The 6 Stages have several side quests available, which are given by the PSS, Nana or the Apostles themselves. Plus, there are also the Challenges for unlocking skills and artworks.
- Male Gaze:
- The instance this happens is when MEFE appears and the camera zooms at her nice buttocks.
- There are several short shots of B★RS in this situation when she's unleashing various skills. Her Blade attacks in particular accentuate her legs.
- Mass Monster-Slaughter Sidequest: Free Play mode spawns a unique type of enemy called "Golden Dawns" which are only available on that mode. Destroying them earns progress in the Golden Hunt challenges that award Character concept arts in the Gallery. Other than the artworks, there is really no other incentive to find them as they don't even give you EXP.
- Mecha-Mooks: The Armaments.
- Mythology Gag:
- One of the mechanical enemies, which is also fought during A Taste of Power, is named Dead Master.
- B★RS rides a Cool Bike in this game, just like in the PV.
- Nana's handgun is named "Seven Shots", which is also the weapon used by Black★Rock Shooter Beast.
- One of B★RS's costumes is a scientist's labcoat as a jab at the fact that huke was also the artist for Steins;Gate.
- New Game Plus: It's also required to get the better ending.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: B★RS can survive lasers, energy bullets, ordinary bullets, missiles, blade slashes, body slams of 3-meter-tall Mecha-Mooks, crashing at 300 kmph into said mooks...
- No-Damage Run: A requirement of some Challenges and Side-quests:
- In Stage 1, where you must not be hit by enemies so that Xiaomin's letter to Phobos won't be damaged. You can still deliver a damaged letter, but that would invalidate the Challenge.
- In Stage 2, where you must not take damage from the Armaments during two of the three Black Trike driving missions.
- Percussive Maintenance: When Rothcall fails to wake up Stella using a computer terminal, PHOBOS angrily fires his rifle at the truck that contains the girl, waking her up.
- Power Armor: SZZU and CKRY. They are siblings.
- Quick Time Event: Present in the boss fights of the Apostles. Also a form of Finish Him!.
- Random Drop Booster: The Treasure Hunt Passive ability which increases the chance of obtaining items after battles.
- The Remnant: The United Earth Force (UEF) is formed from the remaining branches of the United Nations, which was dissolved due to the waves of alien attacks. As a result, all military assets of the world came under the control of the UEF so that they may utilize all resources at a united force against the aliens.
- Roaring Rampage of Rescue: The latter part of the game. It doesn't work. At least during the first time.
- Rule of Seven: There are Seven Apostles, and your main ally is named Nana.
- Shout-Out: Phobos says "The sleeping beauty is up and around." after Stella woke up from the statis pod.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: B★RS delivers one to XNFE."Shut yer trap, alien!"
- Sidetrack Bonus: There are some items, and yellow chests that provide passive abilities or rare consumables when interacted. The same goes for some unique armaments. And all of the aforementioned secrets can only be obtained if you take the time to sidetrack from the main path and explore the area for a bit.
- Significant Double Casting: Maaya Sakamoto voices both Black★Rock Shooter/Stella and White★Rock Shooter/Sing Love by nature of the former being a clone of the latter.
- Super Mode: By igniting a blue flame on her eye, Aggressor Mode increases Stella's Attack and Defense stats for a limited time.
- A Taste of Power: In the very first battle, A practically uber powered B★RS (complete with a few upgraded skills) faces off against a Dead Master, which can hardly scratch her.
- Timed Mission:
- The second and third Black Trike missions have a time limit of 4 minutes for you to reach the destination.
- In Fuji Forest, where you have to rush to save Nana.
- Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe: The Apostles are all initially located in Tokyo, Japan... because that's where their alien mothership landed.
- Trailers Always Lie:
- This game features a mini-game on the official site and one part depicts XNFE shooting laser beams from her arms. This ability of hers does not even appear in the game.
- Since the intro video was also used as an official trailer, this trope overlaps with Cutscene Power to the Max. See the above trope for specific examples.
- Transferable Memory: As a result of the clone's degraded memory capacity, Professor Gibson managed to research and accomplish a device called a Memory Unit that would store and copy someone's memory, and that the subject may be able to retrieve the information by sleeping inside the Memory Unit naked until the process is complete.
- Translation Convention: The game is in Japanese, and didn't receive an English dub, but the first two stages are in America and most of the human characters are of American nationality. Particularly glaring when Nana mentions her name means seven "in some foreign language", but herself uses nana to refer to 'seven'.
- Two-Keyed Lock: One mission in San Francisco requires a gate which must be opened simultaneously from both sides using two terminals. Rothcall is on standby on one side and you get to unlock the other.
- Underground Monkey: Most enemies have at least two stronger recolors of themselves found in later levels.
- Unwitting Pawn: Pretty much everyone! All According to Plan by White★Rock Shooter herself.
- Versus Character Splash: The game has this while Rock has to fight bosses. It's quite unique in this medium, the game being an Action RPG-Turn-Based RPG hybrid.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: The PSS members Jon, Koichi and Tohio are all dead before Stella woke up. They are still shown in the opening cutscene of the first stage but were dumb enough to separate from the trailer where most of there team are.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Dully and Lars were killed because B★RS didn't destroy the Armament on her own, just standing and watching from the sideline, with her reasoning going like "[The Armament] didn't attack me, so they weren't my enemy". Phobos furiously calls her out on this, and would have hurt her if not for Rothcall's intervention.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: LLWO to Nana.
- You Have Researched Breathing:
- Your first combat gameplay mechanic is the ability to shoot the cannon, and you'll get to unlock even the basic controls like dodging after completing Challenges. The "unlockable" controls aren't a big deal since they are all part of the tutorial level.
- This is a blatant case with the Black Blade. Stella is first seen jumping out of the trailer truck with her sword drawn, but you won't be able to use it in-game as a skill yet until you clear a specific Challenge.
Additional tropes found in the manga adaptation of this game:
- Adaptation Deviation: Rothcall never wears his helmet in the manga, unlike in the game.
- Adaptation Expansion: In the extra story at the end of the second volume, MEFE's backstory is revealed. Back on her home planet, MEFE and some other female aliens were being gathered up for means of auction; to the aliens around them, the girls were nothing more than material to be nebladed. As one girl is brutally tested by one alien, MEFE loses her patience and kills the alien. She is immediately subdued... until White★Rock Shooter rescued her.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: MEFE and LLWO appear to be engaged. This is only shown for certain in the manga; in the game, it is not mentioned directly.
- All There in the Manual: The manga adaptation also expands parts of the game's side story, most of which come from the perspectives of the Seven Apostles, as well as background events from the aliens that occur while Stella is fighting somewhere else.
- Answer Cut: When a confused SSZU theorizes who is the alien leading the surprise attack on Antarctica when the remaining Apostles should be at their posts, the next panel shows White★Rock Shooter's empty table, and she appears right behind SZZU on the succeeding panel.
- Bloodier and Gorier: In contrast to the game's Bloodless Carnage, there are scenes with showering blood, impalement, dismemberment, twisted limbs, etc...
- Brain Uploading: In relation to the Transferable Memory of the clones as mentioned above, the manga also shows Nana Gray attempting to delete parts of Stella's memories that have no relation to combat. It fails, as Stella resists the command.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: When Stella introduces herself as a New Transfer Student in "Black★Rock School", she explains how the franchise came to be, and that she is an incarnation of Black★Rock Shooter.
- Break Them by Talking: White★Rock Shooter does this to Nana by telling her as nothing but an Expendable Clone.
- Compressed Adaptation: The manga of this game. A 12+ hour of campaign into 13 manga chapters? While it manages to expand some dialogue and change scenes for new character backstories and relationships, the manga trims down the fat of exposition speak from the game, as well as eliminating a lot of story-related encounters with Armaments.
- Distress Call: The PSS and Stella travel to Antarctica after receiving a distress call from there, hoping that they discover human survivors. It is implied to be coming from SZZU and CKRY whom the Draco picked up on the way. After explaining their plans of a coup d'etat, the siblings sided with the PSS, but strangely enough, they all "continue" with the search for the one who sent the signal and remained in Antarctica for 2 months.
- Enemy Mine: XNFE, SZZU and CKRY incite a coup d'etat against White Rock Shooter under the former's orders, with fear that WRS will still kill them no matter how loyal they are to her. The siblings successfully sided with the PSS in order to train Stella's combat abilities.
- Episode Zero: The Beginning: The first chapter is a prologue titled "Record#00" detailing MEFE's perspective and backstory from the alien planet.
- Gory Discretion Shot: MEFE gets impaled by Stella's long blade by the neck. And blood spurts around a pitch black shadow.
- High School AU: The 4-koma "Black★Rock School" is set in a classroom with the Apostles and Stella as the students and Rothcall as their teacher.
- In the Back: SZZU slashes MZMA from behind just before he can fire his sniper towards Stella.
- Ironic Echo: This exchange between Stella and MEFE, when the former counters with a surprise attack against the latter's surprise attack.MEFE: You tricked me!
Stella: You tricked me first. - Mythology Gag: When asked if she is hungry, Stella mentions that all she needs is a Repairer, which are healing items found in the game.
- Red Herring: When Nana goes to fight Sing Love alone, the next chapters imply that she has been nebladed by the latter (as seen when Sing Love has Nana's hair pin in her tongue). But after the final battle, SAHA sends Stella back to Earth, and the girl is crying tears of joy after seeing Nana just fine. True enough, it was only the hair pin that was taken by Sing Love from Nana, just so that she can intimidate Stella.
- Shout-Out: Being a fan of Western pop culture, MZMA occasionally slips in some quotes from anything he watched.
- "What is Life without the Radiance of Love" - Wallenstein's Death
- "Hell's Vengeance Boils in my Heart" - The Magic Flute
- MZMA copies Ludwig van Beethoven's last words by saying "Friends applaud, the comedy is..." just before he dies at the hands of SZZU.
- Single-Stroke Battle: Stella only uses a single slash when surrounded by XNFE's drones, destroying them all with the shockwave. It is implied that SZZU was the one who taught her this technique.
- Yonkoma: Chapter 6.5 titled "Black★Rock School" is drawn in this format.
