Video Game / Brave Hero Yuusha

Any similarities to Dragon Quest are purely coincidental.

Brave Hero Yuusha is an RPG Maker VX Ace Eastern RPG game, by Torch 60.

You are a hero summoned by your king to fight a demon lord who has taken your princess. Or so it should be, but that story of “Hero fights Demon Lord to rescue Princess” is suddenly torn apart by the world breaking, due to a mysterious top-hatted individual known as The Puppeteer. He has decided that he can tell a better story and is trying to destroy this one to replace it with his own.

So, to fix the world, you must become a party with Princess Glynn and Demon Lord Volza to set the world right.

It was released free, as just Brave Hero Yuusha, on RPGMaker.net and itch.io, and a commercial Updated Re Release, called Brave Hero Yuusha EX was released on 11 Jan, 2019 to Steam and itch.io.

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This game provides examples of:

• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: Landia's inn costs 20G, Garmuldar's inn costs 50G, while Duneport's costs 35G, and the former is only slightly further away than the latter, though, the former is a city, while the latter is a port, so it may be Justifed.
• All Deserts Have Cacti: The desert map has cacti and the Racket Cactuses monsters.
• All in a Row: How the party travels, with the order going: Hero, Demon Lord, Princess.
• Birthday Beginning: In all versions, the story starts with the hero being delivered by their mother to the king on what's said to be their 17th birthday, and in EX at least, there's a choice between whether they know they're the hero, or that it's their birthday.
• Blade Spam: Attacking with the Hawk Dagger makes it hit twice.
• Blob Monster: Presumably Oozies and their Underground Monkey variants, given how they appear to be based on ooze.
• Book Ends: In all versions, player movement of the character starts in the Demon Lord's castle, which is where the last bit of player-controlled movement is too, at least in the original, where trying leaving gets a message of, with the second line only happening at the beginning:
  Determined to bring the Demon Lord to his end, [Character Name] marched straight back into the castle and sought out the throne room!
  Look, I don't like this, either. But you're here now, so...
• Bonus Dungeon: After gathering all seven artifacts in the postgame, the party can open a portal into the school's bookshelf, where they can fight bosses from other storybooks. This ends in a fight with the Cooler Crusader from Soma Spirits.
• The Caligula: The King, who decides to kick the hero off to the Demon Lord's Castle immediately rather than set them off as the story says, and later makes loads of nonsensical laws due to the Puppeteer taking control of them to drive everything Off the Rails.
• Cap: Item stacks are capped at 15 items. Also, in the original, the maximum level is 30, while the Updated Re Release's version 1.10 raises that level cap to 40.
• Character Name Limits: In all versions, every party member's name can be renamed, but there's a limit of 5 characters, and the hero has no default name, unlike the rest of the party.
• Charged Attack:
  • The One-Winged Angel version of The Puppeteer needs to charge for 1 turn to use Star Storm, an attack that deals a lot of damage to the whole party.
  • Glynn can use the Amplify skill, which doubles the damage of her spell next turn while also increasing the spell's MP cost by 50%.
• Catching Some Z's: The symbol for a character being inflicted with Sleep, is a Z made of clouds.
• Collection Sidequest: There are 25 Moon gears that can be delivered to the Moon King for rewards.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: In EX, when presented with the Difficulty Levels selection at the start of the game, they're ordered in difficulty going Green, Yellow, and Red, for Easy, Normal, and Brave respectively.
• Critical Hit: Critical hits from the Heroes are prefixed with "A terrific hit!!" and the attack does triple damage. From the enemies, it's "A painful hit!!"
• Declaration of Protection: The promise that Edward made to Ashlyn a year ago, that drives him now.
• Dem Bones: The eponymous Skeletons of the Skeleton Shop.
• Department of Redundancy Department: The "Yuusha" in the game's title translates to "hero" or "brave", meaning its full translated English title would be "Brave Hero Hero" or "Brave Hero Brave".
• Developer's Foresight: If the player finds the blue key and immediately tries to go to the blue door in the caves southwest of Landia, a slime will block the way. The slime states that it's here to prevent sequence breaking, but gives the player some Soma Flasks as a consolation prize for being thorough.
• Difficulty Levels: In EX, there's Easy, Normal, and Brave difficulty from easiest to hardest.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After defeating the Puppeteer's One-Winged Angel form, they turn back into Edward, fixing the story. Afterwards, the humans are sent back to their world and able to move on while the story is then told allowing everyone to live Happily Ever After.
• Electric Jellyfish: Electroozies, which are floating Oozies that resemble jellyfish.
• Elemental Powers: The Hero has a Star elemental attack, the Demon Lord has Dark attack spells and Star element healing spells, the Princess has Fire and Ice attack spells.
• Enemy Summoner: Racket Cactuses, which can "sound the alarm" repeatedly, but only works to draw in a Duneworm per battle, and can also can attack.
• Final Boss, New Dimension: The Puppeteer fight, the last one of the story, is fought after traveling through a portal to a place where the party has never been- the school in the real world, the Puppeteer/Edward’s home dimension.
• Fireballs: Flickerflames have a Fireball spell.
• Fixed Damage Attack: Mettle Strike. An attack that always deals 2 damage. Always goes last.
• Flavor Text: For equipment, but not consumables, such as:
  • Bronze Sword:
    A cheap, but finely polished sword.
  • Leather Helm:
    A sturdy helm made of leather. May cause chaffing.
  • Leather Armor:
    Standard-issue leather armor.
  • Mistral Helm:
    Shrouds you in a mysterious aura. People think it's pretentious.
  • Staff:
    A mighty fine stick if I ever saw one.
  • Clothes:
    Combat-ready clothes for the wayfarer on a budget.
• Framing Device: The RPG is a story being read by/to the Protagonist.
• Frictionless Ice: The ice patches in Canbrooke and the nearby ice cave will force the party to slide in a direction when they step on these tiles.
• Fusion Dance: Emotions, the fusion of The Puppeteer's 4 minions.
• Giant Spider: Antrachnid, an enemy in the Desert area.
• Give Me Your Inventory Item: The person trapped by lava in the Volcano needs a Lavatate Band to escape. Thankfully, you can give him one, as you get four of them from a chest. One for him, and one for each of the three people in your party.
• Gradual Regeneration: The Zeal skill grants it to the whole party.
• Happily Ever After: Part of the ending narration for the Princess and the Hero. The actual end has everyone, including the demon lord themselves, have a happy ending of being able to chose their own path.
• Healer Signs On Early: After the first battle of the game, when the whole party is assembled, Demon Lord Volza, of all people, gains the "Heal" skill and is the main healer.
• Healing Potion: Heal Seeds, which heal for around 40 HP.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: All three playable characters can be named, but only the Demon Lord and the Princess have default names, Volza and Glynn respectively.
• Hit Points: In the battle screen, only current values of HP are shown.
• HP to One: The Puppeteer's Dominion attack does this to the whole party.
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: The "Hard" difficulty, introduced in the "EX" version, is called "Brave".
• Infinity -1 Sword: The Yuusha Sword. Given via cutscene, right before the battle with the Puppeteer.
• Infinity +1 Sword: The Moonring Sword, from the Moon Medal collection sidequest, giving 5 more ATK than the Infinity -1 Sword of the Yuusha Sword.
• Interchangeable Anti Matter Keys: The Demon Keys of the Demon Lord's Castle, while are used to open its doors, but vanish on use.
• Legendary Weapon: In the original version, as said in the beginning of the story, the Hero is supposed to face the Demon Lord while wielding a mighty legendary sword, while in "EX", it's just "mighty sword" that's cut off, and its the armor, which, is both enchanted and legendary.
• Lethal Lava Land: The Volcano in Vexus has lava tiles that damage the party members if they don't have the Lavatate Band equipped.
• MacGuffin: The Story Page scattered across the world, needed to be recovered to fix the story and the princess's castle.
• Mana Points: In the battle screen, only current values of MP are shown. The Maximum values are only shown in te Status screens for each party member.
• Metal Slime: Oozie Prince and Slick Oozie. They have a high EXP payout but they run away often and can only be hit for 1 damage unless using a Fixed Damage Attack.
• Multi-Character Title: The storybook that's the Framing Device is called The Hero & The Demon.
• Mushroom Man: Mycon-kids and their variations, who are ambulatory mushrooms, and the inhabitants of Myconia.
• Off the Rails: The main premise of the game; rather than send them off on to their adventure to gather strength to fight the Demon King, the King gets the bright idea to kick the Hero over to the Demon Lord's Castle, completely under-prepared. Things only go more off the story when the Puppeteer shows themself, and reveals his plan to replace it with his own stroy.
• One-Hit Kill: The first enemies fought in the game are two Oozies, which each go down in one hit.
• One-Winged Angel: The Puppeteer is absorbed into the Singularity and transforms into a monstrous demon.
• Painting the Medium: In the original, a spaced out and all capitals sentence to represent a strange and presumably ominous state of being by a One-Winged Angel final boss, and it is how that form speaks:
  D e s t r o y E v e r y t h i n g!
  
  I H a t e Y o u.
  I H a t e E v e r y t h i n g.
  Y o u M a d e M e S u f f e r.
  
  Y o u A r e W r o n g.
  I W i l l M a k e Y o u R i g h t.
  
  I D o n ' t U n d e r s t a n d.
  W h a t M a k e s Y o u S o . . .
• Panacea: Mint Leaf: Cures Poison and Burn.
• Party in My Pocket: How some people travel with you, like Anna.
• Playable Epilogue: In the postgame of EX, the player is given a quest to find the artifacts of the original story, which were originally needed to access the Demon Lord's castle. However, the Demon Lord's castle is still destroyed, so the artifacts unlock a different Bonus Dungeon instead.
• Portal Book: In the original, The Hero & The Demon, sucking in Ashlyn, Edward, and their teacher/The Narrator.
• Point of No Return: A monster beside a purple healing crystal in the last area, tells you that "this might be the last chance you get to save your progress."
• Random Encounters: They start after the whole party is assembled in the Demon Lord's castle. If the party is overleveled for an area, the player is given a moderate window of time to press the examine button, allowing them to cancel the encounter.
• Save the Princess: The main goal of the Hero, in The Hero & the Demon is to rescue the Princess of Landia. Averted in the game itself, as the princess joins you and the demon lord in stopping the machinations of the Puppeteer.
• Scratch Damage Enemy: The Metal Slimes Oozie Prince and Slick Oozie.
• Sudden Soundtrack Stop: It happens when the Puppeteer's One-Winged Angel form is defeated.
• Shout-Out: Zeehab and the Whale, to Moby-Dick's Ahab and the Whale.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Canbrooke, due to its Frictionless Ice patches.
• Spiders Are Scary: See Giant Spider. And there's the Spider enemy of Landia.
• Standard RPG Items: There's Panaceas, Healing Potions, Mana Potions, Rare Candies, Revival items, etc.
• Status Effects: Poison, which can't kill, but doesn't go away on battle end. Burns, on the other hand, do go away at the end of battle.
• Storybook Opening: In all versions, the storybook is called The Hero & The Demon, and acts as a Framing Device.
• Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: A purple healing crystal that heals and restores HP and MP to 100% is available before every boss in a dungeon.
• The Promise: Edward makes a promise to protect Ashlyn that drives him from that point onward.
• Railroading: As Book Ends in the original version, if you try to leave the castle, the narration says:
  Determined to bring the Demon Lord to his end, [Character Name] marched straight back into the castle and sought out the throne room!
• Thanking the Viewer: In the original, the final message in the credits is:
  Thanks for playing!
• The End: In the original, Written on the book in the final cutscene before the credits.
• The Stinger: In the original, after the credits is a scene with Ashlyn and Edward leaving school.
• Underground Monkey:
  • Duneworms, Squirmie and other worm types.
  • Oozies: Medicoozies (Which heal), Bloozies (Which are blue), etc.
• Updated Re Release: The Steam commercial release changes some text, adds Difficulty Levels, higher resolution art, an "EX" post-game, and raises the Level Cap to 40 in version 1.10.
• Visible Silence:
  • When the Demon Lord is first met:
  ... In fact, you are nowhere near on cue. Who hired you for this role anyway?
  • By The Puppeteer right after Ashlyn tries to talk him out of his plan.
  • In The Stinger, it's said after Ashlyn remarks on the end of the school day.

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