The technological and cultural achievements of a once-great civilization now lie locked inside the ruins of ancient temples throughout the world of Terrazael. Long after society’s mighty history is snuffed out by a powerful and mysterious “Calamity”, the people of Etlan teeter on the brink of total war. In a desperate attempt to bolster his recruit ranks, King Varic of the Kingdom of Delia expedites the graduation of all students at the Brookstead Military Academy, severing a pact that has stood for a thousand years. With the course of their future undemocratically derailed, four of these “graduates” of the Brookstead Academy set out to leave their mark on this world. This is their story.
On July 25, 2022, a Downloadable Content bonus campaign/costume pack was released: "Suns Out, Swords Out". Additionally, on June 7, 2023, Dark Deity 2 was announced with no set release date; it is planned to take place twenty-five years after the original game, and will star Irving's descendants.
Tropes:
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: The player can only deploy a limited number of characters per battle, usually a maximum of 14 when the full roster is 30.
- Blessed with Suck: Downplayed with Adepts. Manifest potent Elemental Powers at a young age? Congrats, you've set yourself up to be a social outcast for the rest of your days in some cultures, with your best bet at a normal life being as a soldier in the military. Some cultures referred to offscreen, however, tend to celebrate their Adepts instead.
- Challenge Run: In addition to three difficulty settings, the game's options allow players to enable additional challenges, such as randomizing enemy classes and the unit recruitment order.
- Continuing is Painful: The game includes a "grave wound" system, in which a playable unit that falls in battle will suffer a permanent (albeit minor) stat decrease instead of an outright Permadeath.
- Defensive Feint Trap: The game's third chapter has Lincoln choosing to deal with Duskwater's bandit problem before reuniting with the main Delian army, so Garrick and Cia pretend to be wealthy merchants in order to lure a band of brigands into an ambush and track down their base.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Enemies can appear in classes that the player will not reasonably have access to until well afterwards—for example, the first appearance of a tier 3 class is in chapter 5. You likely won't have access to a tier 3 class until at least 10 chapters afterwards.
- Easy-Mode Mockery: The achievement for beating the game at its easiest difficulty is titled "New visual novel, Dark Deity", suggesting that the player spent more time reading text than actually strategizing.
- The Fellowship Has Ended: After beating the Final Boss, the main game ends with the party splitting off into small groups and heading in separate directions.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: On occasion, there will be mention of a unit using a particular weapon, even though they could have become a class that utilizes something completely different. For example, at the end of Chapter 2, Bianca notes some scorched bodies and Elias reveals his magical potential as an Adept...but before Level 10, he's only capable of using spears.
- Gathering Steam: How the Vosh's Sanguination Aspect works. It improves secondary stats like attack power and attack speed based off of the wielder's max HP, making it easier for them to fight enemies, which leads to more experience, which leads to more HP from level ups, which makes the Aspect more powerful.
- Hammer of the Holy: Hammers are the favored weapons of choice for the Cleric and two of its promoted classes, Inquisitor/Crusader and Guardian/Paladin. The only non-Cleric classes that wield hammers are the promoted classes of the Adept, Reverie, and Astral Seeker.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: From easiest to hardest, there's "Mortal", "Hero", and "Deity" mode.
- Magic Knight: Adepts are naturally gifted magic users whose promotion options either allow them to use their magical abilities in close combat, or to channel their magical abilities more directly. There's also the Battlemage and Aegis promotions for the Mage class, which combine magical powers with heavy armor, and the various Combat Medic promotions of the Cleric class. The Dragon Knight counts as an interesting example, as it's a promotion within the Warrior tree that uses both Fire magic and spears, and derives their magic stat from their strength.
- Our Elves Are Different: Elves live longer than humans, but are otherwise relatively mundane, with both races having the same likelihood of producing Adepts, and magic doesn't necessarily favor the elven races either.
- Our Orcs Are Different: One mission in the "Suns Out, Swords Out" DLC shows that orcs exist in the setting, are known for raiding coastal villages in the south of the game's main continent, and their chieftain is capable of using magic. When they arrive to raid the town Irving, Elias, and Iris are tasked with defending, the orcs have green skin, small exposed tusks, and iron crowns, but the rest of their outfits are identical to the human equivalents of their classes.
- Prestige Class: The game boasts a total of 54 classes, divided into six "trees" with units starting in a base class and given four different options for Tier 2 (at Lv. 10) and Tier 3 (at Lv. 30). Notably, the Tier 2 and 3 classes don't have to match, though there are benefits (such as an achievement) if they do.
- Promoted to Playable: The "Suns Out, Swords Out" DLC adds new levels that take place both before and after the main game's content, some of which have the player take control of important former NPCs Varic, Sterling, Alastair, and Empyrean.
- Puberty Superpower: An Adept's powers manifest in their teen years, much like mutants in X-Men or mages in Dragon Age.
- Random Number God: Referenced with the "Blessed by Aren Jee Zuss" achievement, which requires a unit to get +2 for HP and +1 for their eight other stats in a single level-up.
- Relationship Values: By battling together, characters can rank up their relationships with each other, similar to the Support system from later Fire Emblem titles. The store page advertises that there are over 400 unique conversations that can be viewed through this system.
- Sequel Hook: The main story ends with the small group of Irving, Elias, and Iris deciding to join the Order of Eternals. The "Suns Out, Swords Out" DLC missions taking place after the ending further build it up, with Irving's group properly inducted into the Order while another mission focusing on Ford and Fenton has the former rack up a huge debt from the aftermath of a Bar Brawl, with Vesta offering to pay it off if they undertake a top-secret mission for the Order that's never revealed to the player.
- Shout-Out:
- Many achievement names are references to other media, such as "I live my life a quarter-mile at a time", "Say hello to my little friend", and "You know, I'm something of a strategist myself".
- Some of the class descriptions also reference other media, such as the Inquisitor being "most effective when unexpected" or the Strider's, which notes that "Some may be more important than they seem."
- Faust is rather fond of paraphrasing various memes in his Critical Attack quotes, such as "I'm a healer, BUT...", "Then pay with your blood!", and "You're already dead!"
- The Longbow descriptor is a direct quote from Shinon. "One clean motion, no hesitation."
- The Stiletto's description calls it an "elegant weapon for a more civilized age".
- Spam Attack: Some weapon attacks done by certain classes hit for multiple times, spreading the damage over multiple attacks. Downplayed in that this is a mostly cosmetic effect.
- Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: There are nine types of offense (Arcane, Cleaving, Crushing, Fire, Holy, Piercing, Projectile, Slashing, and Storm) and four types of armor (Plate, Chain, Leather, and Rune Cloak). Each offensive type has a major advantage against one armor, a minor advantage against a second, and a disadvantage against the other two.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Male Adepts in the Blaze and Surge promotion classes forgo upper clothing, showing off elemental patterns dancing across their skin.
- Walking Swimsuit Scene: The "Suns Out, Swords Out" DLC is named thus because, in addition to bonus missions, it adds a toggle that switches all of the original playable character outfits into swimwear alternate costumes.
- World of Buxom: the majority of the female characters sport huge breasts.
