Video Game / .hack//G.U.

aka: Dot Hack GU Games

The Infinity Eight: Left to Right: Endrance, Ovan, Atoli, Yata, Haseo, Pi, Sakubo, Kuhn

Taking place after the events in .hack//SIGN and the original .hack games, the popular MMORPG "The World" is open for business yet again. Well, the new World. The old one was destroyed when the servers mysteriously burned down. The new world is a bit Darker and Edgier these days with all the Player Killing. The PKK (Player Killer Killer) from .hack//Roots, Haseo, has become legendary in his own right. As a hunter; he has killed hundreds of Player Killers and has gained the title The Terror Of Death. Yes, the same title the first Boss in the first game series had. He is hunting down a mysterious Player Killer known as Tri-Edge, for this mysterious Tri-Edge PK'd Haseo's girlfriend Shino, and she fell into a coma in real life.

After being attacked and Data Drained by Tri-Edge, Haseo is found by a mysterious organization known as Raven, and joins its ranks, unleashing a hidden power in his character data known as Skeith.

All the while, a mysterious computer phenomenom called AIDA is threatening the existence of "The World" and quite possibly the entire Internet.

Like its predecessor the game is split into multiple parts, or volumes:

• Volume 1: Rebirth
• Volume 2: Reminisce
• Volume 3: Redemption
• Volume 4: Reconnection (HD Remaster only)

Character Sheets are here, tropes related to them should be added there.

A remaster of the game, .hack//G.U. last Recode was released in 2017 on PS4 and PC on Steam to celebrate both the original trilogy's tenth anniversary and the 15th anniversary of the the .hack franchise as a whole. It features various technical enhancements, a new form for Haseo, and an entirely new fourth volume of the story: Reconnection, “Or Dreams the Snakes That Spin the World Dream.”

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The games contain examples of the following tropes:

• Acceptable Breaks from Reality:
  • The World R:2 never crashes or lags, unless because of in-story events.
  • The Save Stations: Not only do real MMORPGs not have anything of the sort, but in G.U. you start the next play session at the last save station you saved at rather than your desktop (unless you used that one last, which is itself another acceptable break). This actually helps add some realism to a story event early on in Disk 2.
    • The series does justify save stations decently: it saves level progress and items gained, and characters will complain of lost progress and levels if they're ever PK'd.
  • The affection meters are clearly not part of the Game Within a Game because you can increase them by sending other people emails and greeting cards. Yet they have level limits that depend on which of the three GU games you are playing, cannot be increased in The World when the other player's character is dead, and eventually you find in-game objects used to increase them.
  • The game pauses when you check your menu, which shouldn't be possible if it was a real MMO and Haseo was checking his menu while the other players continued to act.
  • Bikman's portrait sidequest logs every player you've talked to online and how many you have left to talk to. When a normal online game can contain millions of players instead of around 140 and have few indications of who you've talked to, it's probably something to be thankful for that Bikman's quest isn't much more difficult than it already is to track everyone down.
• Adaptation Distillation: The Trilogy movie.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Malicious AIDA, or artificially intelligent data anomalies, are this. Other benign AIDA exist and do not fit this trope.
• All There in the Manual: See the entry for Hidden Depths. Also, some events in the game make way more sense if you've watched .hack//Roots.
  • Additionally there was a disc included with some editions of Volume 1. Written as a personal diary that detailed how The World R:2 came about, how the Epitaph Program came about, the mysterious fire at CC Corp, the fate of Mia from the R:1 series, the details of Aura and how she created the Azure Knights and Rena and Shugo.
    • Notably, every copy of Recode includes this disc as one of the two bonuses, averting this trope for the people arriving for the remake.
• Alternate Continuity: The game starts the same way as the novels, manga, and Trilogy. Each medium branches in different ways after the basic premise is set up and acknowledges that they're alternate tellings. For the record, the games are the canon version.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: All of the Avatar battles as well as some of the areas outside of the system that aren't a White Void Room.
• And I Must Scream: In the matches against Alkaid and Kuhn in Volume 1.
  • For Alkaid, Skeith is summoned without Haseo calling for him. Haseo is speechless, shocked, and eventually genuinely horrified when Skeith starts acting without him, and struggles to scream as Skeith attacks Alkaid. He appears to try and stop it, but is powerless against Skeith as he's filled with the memories of Endrance, Alkaid, and Antares all commenting on how he can't beat Alkaid without the Avatar despite his bluster and attempts to prove that he could.
  • For Kuhn, Skeith is summed by Haseo to counter Kuhn's Magus. But when Skeith starts delivering one of the most brutal beat-downs in the series against Kuhn, Haseo outright panics and wills it to stop as much as it can but can't do anything about it and gets into genuine regret when Skeith uses Data Drain on Kuhn. Kuhn is at least able to get better afterwards easier than Alkaid, as he meant to teach him a lesson anyways.
• Animal Motifs:
  • Bordeaux embodies the obsessive, predatory spider woman.
  • Atoli's player loves birds, so she named her character after one and gave it the wing-cloak design. Thematically, she fits the vulnerable, "caged bird" heroine who is later set free to fly.
  • Gaspard has a rather dog-like loyalty and affectionate nature that fits his design too.
    • Notably, Gaspard's facial design looks more like a lab or retriever, dogs known for being friendly and sociable. On the opposite end, a more wild-looking design is a common NPC design you can find in fields attacking other players.
  • Members of the minor NPC guild ZOO attempt to play this trope up too, but with much less depth.
• Anti-Air: Multiple examples:
  • A Sinister Scythe is great at knocking down high-altitude flying enemies, so dealing with them becomes a flick reaper's job if there is one in the party.
  • Twin Blades' regular attacks cannot easily hit high-altitude flying enemies, so they must use their Sparrow Counter, Chaotic Strike or Ghost Falcon arts, magical items, or Black Magic that they learn from a magic shop's scrolls to take fliers.
  • Characters that have learned attack spells from magic scrolls and Shadow Warlocks are great against flying enemies.
• Anti-Gravity Clothing: For some reason, the sharp edges on Haseo's signature twin blades are not connected at all to the main "spine".
• Apocalypse How: Class 3a is threatened if Cubia is not defeated since its damage to the internet will cause the real world's nuclear power plants to melt down and wipe out humanity.
• Arc Words:
  • Grow Up.
  • "Welcome to the World."
  • "Become stronger, Haseo."
• Art Shift: The Online Jack sequences in the first three games are handled with 2D hand-drawn animation.
• Ascended Extra: Four of the main characters' players were active in R1, but were much lesser players of varying degrees.
  • Kuhn is Tomonari Kasumi, once Sieg and a former Lost One, as well as former boyfriend to Liminality's first protagonist, Mai Minase. Supposedly more mature, he's gained some skirt-chasing tendencies due to Mai breaking up with him out of immaturity in the seven-year interim.
  • Yata is Takumi Hino, the former Wiseman, still the information broker of the cast, albeit with a more important position, and some baggage regarding his role in the grand scheme of things.
  • Endrance is Kaoru Ichinose, once Elk. Aside from becoming one of a few Starter Villains, he becomes crucial in saving Haseo's bacon big time in two instances, even playing a minor gambit to ensure Haseo's success that Elk would never have been able to come up with.
  • Best of all, Haseo is Ryou Misaki, the once-10-year-old behind Sora, the infamous Player Killer of SIGN, who lost his memories of ever playing R1 from being Data Drained and rendered comatose by Skeith, ironically for defying Morgana and saving the newly-awakened Aura. Returning to The World drags him back into a Network Crisis that renders others as comatose as he once was, facing many interactions that force him to grow up, and find the power to save everyone from the very entity that made him a Lost One, even reconciling with it.

• Ax-Crazy: All of the PKs, Bordeaux as a most shining example. Haseo in his PKK days too. Sakaki once he becomes infected with AIDA may be the craziest of the lot.
• Author Avatar: Piros the Third is based upon Hiroshi Matsuyama, the director of the game series. Natsume is based off his wife.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Level 3 Arts in Volume 3. They look awesome, but are generally less powerful and useful than regular skills. ^note Level 3 Arts takes a lot of time but around Skill Level 28 onward it costs as much SP as of its last regular skill, to the point of costing less than them, and also it's possible to nearly spam them since the more you level the Skill the faster the trigger gauge will recover. However their worst flaw lies in the Beast Awakening, when their (often rather slow) speed isn't amplified, unlike the regular skills. Furthermore, the only Level 3 Art that gets a speed boost during Beast Awakening suffers from it by missing half its hits..

• Bash Brothers: Haseo and Ovan in Vol 4.
• Bayonet Ya: Used by the Steam Gunner class. The bayonet blade is permanently attached as part of the gun.
• Berserk Button:
  • Mistaking Haseo for a noob. This extends to being looked down on in any way. (e.g. The first conversation with Endrance, Pi, etc.).
  • Also, endangering any of Haseo's comrades is simply asking to get online ass-kicked. PK'ers who hunt beginners also trigger Haseo's button.
  • Calling Hiiragi "he".
  • Calling ωRice "Butt-Rice"^note For the record, ω is the lowercase form of the Greek letter "omega", but it's nowhere near as well known as its uppercase form.. One player on the forums in particular seems to intentionally spam this button frequently, but that and ωRice's otherwise half-assed reactions make people think they're Vitriolic Best Buds.

• Between My Legs: In the most serious fashion possible in the endgame battle of Volume 1.
  Haseo: Give us back... ALL OF THE LOST ONES!!!
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • As a surprise guest character from the previous .hack quadrilogy of games Natsume makes an appearance in Redemption. She has a split personality as the Chaotic PK "Natsume: The Edge-Maniac".
  • Atoli plays this straight for the major characters. She's normally sweet, kind, and helpful, but she quickly gets mad at Haseo for dismissing the Moon Tree guild and goes absolutely insane and starts murdering her fellow guild members when infected by AIDA.
• Big Bad: Azure Flame Kite in the first game, "Tri-Edge" Ovan in the second and finally Cubia in the game series ending, with Ovan serving as the main Well-Intentioned Extremist Big Bad of the trilogy. However, all of them are far less evil Greater Scope Villains to Sakaki; he serves as The Heavy in Volume 2 and 3 and tries to play The Chessmaster starting in Volume 1, causing more direct grief and damage to the heroes than anything Ovan directly does, and remains their biggest hindrance in dealing with the greater AIDA crisis, as he deliberately spreads it for his own gain. Cubia, meanwhile, is simply a consequence and loose end stemming from Ovan's defeat that no one intended.

• BFS: One of the classes is Edge Punisher. Their weapons are giant swords, which are twice the size of their characters. Haseo can use them once he does the first upgrade quest in Volume 1. They excel at breaking armor and doing damage against enemies with hard bodies, but stink at opening up an enemy against rengeki attacks. Since they use heavy armor which is weak against magic, they are vulnerable to magic users.

• Big "NO!": Humorously done by Atoli in the Promise event with Endrance.
  • Not so humorously done when Kuhn and Atoli are screaming at Haseo to not use the newly awakened Skeith on Bordeaux and her lackeys.
• Birds of a Feather: Haseo and Pi are both caustic, snarky, headstrong jerks who are not very receptive to “nice treatment”; but they're genuinely good people under the surface and grow quite close. Naturally, though, they start off hating each other. The same can be said about Haseo and Bordeaux, and she certainly noticed their commonality, but as can be seen by the main plot, her outlets certainly did not endear her to Haseo, and the two go beyond more than hating each other. It's only after Bordeaux calms down post-game do we get her side via reading between the lines and her outright spelling out her issue during her Promise ending
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Sakaki acts nice in his first appearances, including saving Haseo from Bordeaux and getting her to stop PKing him. And then he goes crazy and starts manipulating Atoli as early as halfway through Volume 1.
• Bittersweet Ending: In Reconnection. The World has lost popularity in the years since Redemption and it's servers are going to be shut down soon. However Piros unintentionally reveals that the game team are already working on the Third version of the World.
• Black Mage: The appropriately named Shadow Warlock class, who specializes in offensive magic attacks rather than healing magic. This class is great at taking down magically weak enemies, but skilled physical attackers can easily take them down with counter attacks, especially with hangeki attacks in the arena because these counter attacks cancel the magical attacks being executed.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: Multiple instances:
  • The English version of this game makes plenty of mistakes on whether something is singular or plural. These translation errors make sense if one has studied Japanese because the Japanese language requires that the writer consider the context of the noun in question to determine if something is singular or plural, while English requires the writer to explicitly choose singular or plural when writing unless the writer chooses to be very wordy to say that the noun can be either singular or plural.
  • Kaotin in the Shadows is the same PK as Kaochin from .hack//SIGN. This is a case of two inconsistent but valid Romanizations in the franchise that is a case of Spell My Name With An S.
• Bonus Dungeon: The 100-floor Forest of Pain.
• Boss Rush: Doppelgangers in the last dungeon of the Vol. 3 Redemption.
• Boss Subtitles: If you run into a Chaotic PK in The World R:2, a title card with the Chaotic PK's name and Red Baron title will be shown.
• Bounty Hunter: CC Corporation has set up a bounty hunting quest to reward player killer killers, or PKKs, for killing player kilers, or PKs, who kill other players when the other player does not consent to being killed because these PKs generally are griefers. The worst PKs are called chaotic PKs, and they are placed on a blacklist that shows that killing these chaotic PKs will get the player who does this special rewards.
• Bragging Rights Reward: The DG-Z (level 150 weapon, strongest Dual Guns) and the Guide to Divinity (level 150 accessory that boosts skills and increases skill XP gain) in Redemption are both extremely powerful pieces of equipment, obtained only upon the defeat of final boss of the Forest of Pain optional event, the God of Death, Cernunnos...and they're practically useless by that point, since you've already beaten the ultimate bosses. They can be used to take on a Superboss-esque arena team, the Sweepstakers, but outside of that you're pretty much done with the game by the time you get the stuff.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: It's not clear whether the game interface for "The World" itself tracks your allies' affection rating, but the email system might as well have No Fourth Wall.
• Break Meter: Two examples:
  • Armored and high-flying enemies have this. This meter represents the durability of the enemy's armor or whatever allows them high-altitude flight. Armored enemies are weak against a BFS, while flying enemies often are weak against a Sinister Scythe.
  • In Last Recode, the enemy in an avatar battle has a stun meter displayed. When it is emptied, the enemy is stunned, and is vulnerable to being slashed. Emptying this meter is the only way to stop an enemy avatar from hitting you with a Data Drain.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer:
  • Piros the 3rd is actually a graphics programmer for "The World R:2". His behavior as a character is quite eccentric.
  • Minor NPC Ninjato is actually one of the graphics designers for "The World R:2." You probably better know him as that guy who is obsessed with shrine maidens.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Multiple NPCs around town can be encountered attacking other players in the field once you start Dingo's Bounty Hunter questline. Neither side will have a different response chain if Haseo talks to them in the town after these events.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: Piros the 3rd, who phrases most of his descriptions about himself as hypotheticals ("Consider if you will..."). The only time he ever drops this is during the Gurugon quest in volume 1 when faced with the beast-player who wants to become an artist/graphic designer himself.

• Calling Your Attacks: Not all of them, but still most of them. This is the only way to hear Azure Balmung's and Azure Orca's voices, though Azure Kite won't talk even while using his skills.
• Can't Catch Up: Certain characters just plain drew the short straw when it comes to usefulness as party members due to their own setups.
  • Matsu is an Adept Rogue who doesn't use broadswords, which basically makes him a Steam Gunner who can't be as powerful as dedicated Steam Gunners. He's also going up against Kuhn, who's importance to the story means you have to use him in your party. The only real trade-off is that Matsu can use stronger armor than Kuhn.
  • Bordeaux joins as a playable character late into Volume 3. She's level 80 and equipped with a level 25 weapon, while everyone else in the game is already likely to be higher than level 120. She's also the same Blade Brandier class as 7 other characters on the roster already. There's nothing stopping the player from properly leveling and gearing her up, but she doesn't bring anything unique either, although having her around fills in more sides to her character that recontextualize her entire relationship with Haseo.
• Can't Drop the Hero: Despite playing an MMO where anyone could be the party leader, Haseo can't relinquish the role; even if you have a way to revive him, it will still ask if you want to retry if Haseo dies. It goes further in that even though your party members get gold while you adventure together and can even level up outside the party, they never buy new equipment for themselves. However, if you were smart enough to bring someone in your party that has Rip Maen in his or her skill list and you chose Free Will or Life for the strategy, he or she will revive you if you wait long enough, allowing you to continue the battle as long as you are not in the arena whose rules state that a team is defeated if the leader is killed.
• Card Games: Outside of "The World" is an online card game you can play based off characters and skills from the .hack universe. If you make your way up the ranks, you'll eventually be challenged by the champion, Gaspard.

• Chainsaw Good: For Haseo, especially in his PKK days and in the later parts of the series once again after his upgrade quest in Volume 1.

• Haseo. Lampshaded in one of the wallpapers you can unlock in Redemption.
• Silabus is also one.
• Kuhn tries to be. It often fails or backfires on him.

• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Subverted. Haseo is dragged grumbling and grousing into helping people by Silabus and Gaspard. Despite his Jerkass personality in Disc 1, you simply can't advance the plot without helping them out.
  • Also Averted at one point during disk 1, where Haseo won't back out of the tournament despite pressure by Kuhn because he does want to restore Canard's reputation and help Silabus and Gaspard when they're bullied by Bordeaux, which also starts his increase in empathy.
  • The player can also have this; after the Bounty Hunter quest, other NPCs will start appearing in the fields and dungeons in Battle Areas that cannot be escaped using Smoke Screen, but Haseo and co. can enter to help if they so choose. Inside the Battle Area will either be a group of monsters from the area, a potential PK, or one of Dingo's seven most dangerous bounties (each with weapons and armor much higher than you will have at that point).

• Cloudcuckoolander:
  • Many of the minor NPCs, but Henako is made of this trope.
  • All the Grunties are a little off, but Melo Grunty stands out in scenes where they all gather to talk.
  • Also, near the end of Volume 3, all of the natives of the Netslum.
• Combat Hand Fan: Used by the Macabre Dancer class.
• Combos: Yeah. Lots of them. The combat system revolves around them, actually; powerful attack boosts called "Rengeki (連撃)" attacks can be done done after landing enough hits on a single enemy but break the chain once executed. They double the damage done by a skill and guarantees one boost in morale per other party member that is alive during the rengeki. Combos of 16 or more will create a boost in morale from some party members.
• Compilation Re-release: Last Recode is both this and Updated Re-release as it contains HD ports of the first 3 volumes, as well as an additional fourth volume called Reconnection.
• Cool Sword: The non-BFS kinds are used by the Blade Brandier class.
• Cosmic Keystone: Key of Twilight, anyone?
• Counter-Attack: Counter attacks are big in the combat system of this game. Either a skill or a charge attack can be used to counter a skill or item use in progress and interrupt or cancel it. If one performs a counter attack in the arena using a skill, it is called a hangeki (反撃) attack, raises your party morale as long as your other party members are alive, and decreases the enemy party's morale. They do not double the damage of a skill, unlike rengeki attacks. In the PlayStation 2 version, hangeki attacks are mistakenly called rengeki attacks. This is fixed for the Windows version.
• Climax Boss: Each Volume has its own and they are hardly a letdown.
  • Vol. 1: Bordeaux, Alkaid, and Endrance.
  • Vol. 2: Innis, Atoli's avatar and Sakaki.
  • Vol. 3: Sakaki (AIDA-infected), Ovan and the Azure Knights.
• Creepy Child: The victims of Doll Syndrome.
• Cross Player: Some background characters and Bo, who is a boy playing a female character.
  • Asta, although it's never mentioned in the game itself. In Roots, her voice changes to her male player's voice after her and her buddies' intention to PK Haseo is revealed.
• Cruel to Be Kind: When Atoli blames herself for what she did while controlled by Sakaki, Haseo demands to know how she intends to take responsibility to snap her out of it rather than reassure her it isn't her fault.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • The beginning of the first game shows a level 133 Haseo fighting Tri-Edge (who is actually Azure Flame Kite), who nonchalantly blocks all of of Haseo's attacks one-handed, knocks him on his ass, destroys his weapon without even touching it, gives him a Facepalm of Doom, and Data Drains him, reducing him to level one. Ouch.
  • Haseo's opening battle vs. Bordeaux and the other PKs.
  • It is established quite well in the first game that normal players will experience this against Avatar users who spam out the Phases. Even said in-game that Endrance was originally quite a low-level player, for an Arena Emperor.
• Cute Bruiser: Zelkova, the only Flick Reaper you can party with.
• Cute Machines: MECHA! MECHA! MECHA! MECHA-GRUNNNTYYY!! *dun da dun!*
• Cuteness Proximity: Atoli has shades of this trope, although this is particularly exaggerated in the 4koma strips.
• Cutscene Incompetence:
  • Played very straight in the fight against Alkaid in Volume 1. Depending on your level, this can also happen with Bordeaux in the same volume.
  • In an avatar battle, you can't dodge data drains fired at you. However, the enemy can dodge the data drains that you fire.
• Cutscene Power to the Max:
  • Happens with a few opponents, particularly in the Arena but in other boss fights as well. For example, in the first battles with Bordeaux and Alkaid in the Demon Palace Tournament, Haseo can be overleveled and could have wiped the floor with them easily, only for the cutscenes to start and have Haseo getting his butt kicked and utterly curbstomped.
  • Alkaid, when she came Back from the Dead. She was destroying dozens and dozens of Cubia Gomoras in a cutscene, but when you use her to fight the same Gomoras she barely can scratch them. The Last Recode remake automatically levels her up to the party average to compensate.
• Cyberspace: The entire game takes place in an MMORPG, and its effects on the real world are the major plot point of the game. It also has a more traditional Cyberspace in the AIDA-infested space outside of the normal game areas, and of course hacking is all graphical with avatars.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Some have this, but the most notable is Atoli. Her complete lack of self-esteem pushes her to do "good" stuff to gain acceptance even in a game. To twist the knife further, her most trusted friend/mentor Sakaki is actually manipulating her, milking her trust in him and her powers of the Second Epitaph, Innis. She also met him on a suicide website.
• Dark Is Not Evil: At first glance on Haseo's◊ outfit after the Time Skip of six months would you still believe he is the hero? More over would you believe he is one of the nicest guys by the time he recovers the very same form?
• Darker and Edgier: The World is overrun with Player Killers, the main character is a Jerkass Player Killer Killer who likes to use the online equivalent of chopping people's heads off, Aura decided to leave The World with all the ensuing instability from her absence, and The World that they're playing in? It's actually a cobbled-together version with the original largely gone after its servers were physically destroyed. And that's all just the back story and opening. As you make your way into the game and learn more about the people in it things just get darker from there.
• Deadpan Snarker: Haseo, frequently. (Especially when Atoli, Pi, or Piros the 3rd are involved).
• Death Glare: Haseo gives one before charging Tri-Edge for the first time and then to Bordeaux when she throws in his face she was the one who PK'ed Alkaid, making her go comatose and nearly killing her in real life.

• Deconstruction: Quite a few players function as this.
  • Yata's character arc is very similar to Wiseman from IMOQ. Yata's an information gatherer who knows more than any other character about AIDA and how "The World" works, similar to Wiseman with the Phases. But with Yata, a lot of information is given or held back based on how much use it will be for his own ends instead of Haseo's group as a whole and it's revealed he hoped AIDA would have chosen him instead of Ovan. Amusingly, Yata is Wiseman, so he ends up causing himself a lot of trouble for his changes in behavior.
  • Atoli is one for the caged-bird heroine who wishes to fly away. Her "cage" is part due to Sakaki's influence and part due to her being helpless and relying on others without looking at consequences. Haseo's speech after freeing her from AIDA's influence essentially equates to Haseo can only do so much to help her and she will have to do the main part of freeing herself on her own.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Many, many of the characters whom you defeated will become your allies later on, and you can add them as party members, like Natsume, Matsu, Alkaid, Bordeaux, and so on.
  • Alkaid and Endrance can also fall under Defrosting Ice Queen, as beating them also doubles as a Break the Haughty moment.
• Dirty Coward: The chaotic PK Greedy Cervantes is one. He loves to PK those who are weaker than him, but he flees from those who he knows are stronger than him if he is able to do so.
• Disc-One Final Dungeon: The full inner part of Moon Tree's area to an extent in Reminisce, because while it is close to the end of the game, the Final Boss is fought some time afterwards.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • The Doppelganger weapons, if you get them early enough in Vol. 2.
  • To a lesser extent, getting Edge Punishers makes fights with Chaotic PKs, who could kill you in one hit, into a relaxing exercise in juggling with earthquakes.
• Disney Villain Death: Played straight with Sakaki in Reminisce and subverted following his comeback in Redemption.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Several lines from the ending, when removed from context, sound more like they came from a lover's spat.
  Haseo: Wait! I... I still haven't found a way to return your feelings. You're always like this. You always leave before I can tell you how I feel! And now you're leaving me again! Please...Ovan!
• Doom Magnet: Anyone in Raven/G.U., but particularly Haseo.
  • Due to not being as wrapped up in the main story as the others, Silabus and Gaspard are particularly prone to this. They're just normal players who become targeted by Kestrel due to teaming up with Haseo and for helping him in the Arena, and get caught up by accident in some of the major events caused by AIDA, all because Gaspard ran into Haseo by accident and they took him under their wing by mistaking him for a noob. A major side-arc of volumes 1 and 2 is Haseo slowly coming to the understanding they really are normal and not involved in any way with the AIDA troubles, and learning how to enjoy the game with them while avoiding getting them involved in his own personal feuds as much as possible.
• Doppelgänger: A game based event where you can fight your twin who is far stronger than you and get awesome prizes! They also become a part of the Final Battle.
• Drunk on the Dark Side
  • Everyone infected by AIDA, but especially Sakaki.
  • Haseo when his Avatar has awakened until he nearly kills Kuhn.
• Dual Wielding:
  • Anyone who has the Twin Blade job. This class is great for dealing high damage per second against ground-based enemies without hard bodies or armor via Death of a Thousand Cuts and excel at opening up enemies to rengeki attacks, but is not very effective against armored and hard-bodied enemies and is nearly worthless against airborne enemies most of the time.
  • The Macabre Dancer class dual wields war fans.
• Dub Name Change: In keeping with the fantasy themes of all the classes ("Steam Gunner", "Macabre dancer", "Shadow Warlock", etc), the simple named "Multi-Weapon" class was changed to "Adept Rogue" from Japanese to English.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Endrance.
• Dynamic Difficulty: Doppelgangers, which are always 8 levels above the leader of the party they face. Except that they are still restricted by the level maximum.
• Dysfunction Junction: Many of the playable characters have issues, to say the least.
• Eccentric Mentor:
  • Antares.
  • Kuhn plays with this trope. He's very flirtatious towards females, far and away the most easy-going member of G.U., and is very laid back, but he's the one who teaches Haseo the most about Avatars aside from Pi.
• Eldritch Location: A few of the Lost Grounds, but most notably the Great Temple of Caerleon Medb, which is practically an Amazing Technicolor Battlefield with its floating ruins over a void and a swirling nebula and stream of broken asteroids in the distance. A couple of the others notably involve floating ruins or otherwise impossible architecture like magma "aquaducts."
• Elemental Powers: The game has a 6-element system of Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Dark and Light (although Dark and Light didn't come into play until Volumes 2 and 3). Several characters are themed along certain elements in appearance or personality and come with unique equipped items that match that theme when the join the party (e.g. Antares & fire, Endrance & wind, etc).
• Emergency Transformation: When Haseo's character data is critically damaged in the wake of Ovan's defeat, Zelkova repairs it, giving Haseo a new appearance and an additional character class.
  • Avatars are often unwillingly called forth in response to near-defeat when an Epitaph User has just awakened (and is thus still fairly new to using them). This happens several times to Haseo. The awakening itself is triggered by intense emotional distress.
• Emoticon
  • Unsurprising, since forum posts and emails are a part of the game.
  • Japanese-style emoticons also appear in Vol. 3 as the faces of NPCs native to the Netslum.
• Emotion Bomb: AIDA, which magnifies the emotion of people—be it good or bad. Some examples are Saku with her desire to protect Endrance and despise towards Haseo, Bordeaux with her grudge towards Haseo, Sirius with his desire to stay emperor, Atoli and her terrible inferiority complex, and Sakaki's desire to shape the entire world to be more like the Moon Tree guild ideals.
• Enemy Without: One character introduced in Reconnect is the the Tri-Edge AIDA, separated from Ovan.
• Engrish: CC Corp's slogan: "Heartful and useful for all."
• Everyone Can See It: Haseo and Atoli. They have strong feelings for each other, but neither of them is actually aware of the other's feelings. Half the cast want them to hook up.
  Silabus: "She's cute, but she has you, doesn't she? :)"
• Evil Sounds Deep: The system administrators aren't evil, but their voice is a pretty good clue that things aren't going to be better when they get involved. Sakaki also has this.
• Evil Weapon: Demon Sword Maxwell.
• Face–Heel Turn: Endrance and Saku turn their backs on Haseo and join Taihaku in the Sage Palace Tournament. Subverted when it turns out to have been a mole ploy on Endrance's part, but Saku wasn't aware of it, so hers was real. Realizing that she had no real reason to change sides beyond simply following "Master En" forces her into a massive existential crisis and leads to the point where she may potentially disappear from Bo's consciousness.
• Facial Markings: Lots. Tattoos are all over the place. Especially on the face.
• Faking the Dead: Kuhn, after he got beat the crap out in the fight against Skeith.
• Fanservice: A lot. Let's leave it at that.
• Foreshadowing
  • Haseo is generally not nice in Volume 1, but he holds a particular contempt for Sakaki. Guess what Sakaki does later on...
    • It goes further than that even:
      Sakaki: If you have any trouble you would like help with, feel free to rely on any one of us at any time.
      Haseo: No thanks! I'd feel like I was brainwashed for asking.
  • The scene with Sakaki and Atoli at the Lost Ground is a type of foreshadowing as well.
  • The normally quiet and reserved Bo occasionally switches into Saku's more fiery and sarcastic dialogue patterns despite being the one in control.
    • To thank Haseo for selling him the Dusty Miller at a discounted rate, Bo writes a post on the general board. The username on the board? "Sakubo".
  • Atoli and Sakubo being Epitaph Users is also briefly foreshadowed when Haseo Awakens his own. It's stated previously that only Epitaph Users can see Avatars, and it seems fairly obvious that those two can see Haseo's.
  • When Atoli finds out that her character model looks almost exactly the same as Shino's. At the end of a tearful rant, she shouts "I wanted you to look at me!" Guess what she's screaming during her Avatar fight...
  • Yata has you meet his alt account Nala, which he's used as a sockpuppet to infiltrate Moon Tree, at Θ Clever Genius's Moon Raven.
• Flanderization: A story element. AIDA's status as an Emotion Bomb means originally complex characters get one-tracked minds based on their strongest impulses under AIDA's influence; the longer a character has been exposed to AIDA, the stronger the effect is.
• Flower Motifs: A scene in Vol. 2 hinges on how honeysuckles mean "devoted affection." Cue flashback & angst for Haseo and Luminescent Blush and denials from Alkaid.
  • In an E-mail chain with Sakubo in Vol. 3, Haseo tells Saku that a White Chrysanthemum means "I'm here for you". This convinces the Saku side of Bo's personality to not abandon him.
• Foil: Haseo and Sakaki; their character developments over the three volumes are almost exactly reversed. Haseo goes from a power-hungry revenge-driven PKK to a strong and stalwart Nice Guy who uses his power and position for the defense of his allies. Sakaki starts out as a seemingly strong and stalwart Nice Guy who uses his power and position for the defense of his allies/pawns to a power-hungry madman intent on shaping "The World" to his own twisted ideals. Even better, Sakaki is revealed to be a kid with a very bad attitude, not unlike Haseo/Ryou Misaki himself was seven years prior as Sora, albeit with a different kind of bad attitude. In fact, at the end of the whole ordeal, Tooru Uike completely forgets ever being Sakaki, much like Ryou lost his memories of ever being Sora.
  • Sakaki is also this to Yata, as the latter was also a ridiculously intelligent and competent ten-year-old seven years prior and remains so now. The two similarly tend to look down on others, both seek to be taken seriously by a higher power (Sakaki by adults and Yata by Aura and AIDA) and have hidden agendas. The difference is, Yata ultimately and genuinely uses his talents and plans to tangibly solve the crisis and ensure the well-being of all the players, while Sakaki abuses his and the current crisis to causes untold amounts of harm of multiple kinds in the name of his own ego and twisted idea of a utopia, with him as God.
• Forced Level-Grinding: The bigger the difference of levels, the less damage you'll do (if a lower level than your opponent) and take (if a higher level). If the difference is six or more levels levels you won't even make you opponent flinch. Unless you have some serious skills, tons of healing items, or resort to hit and run tactics, you really shouldn't fight enemies under-leveled.
  • This can actually lead to hilarious cases of abuse, such as having the Doppelganger die from having a monster dozens of levels above him thrown at him, or the Final Boss of the 3rd game killing itself in one attack by having an overly low level ally equipped with a counter customized armor.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: When the screen turns to greyscale in Haseo's first encounter with AIDA, Atoli temporarily turns into Shino. This happens a few times during volume 1 with Haseo's more self-absorbed moments with Atoli.
• Friend to All Children: Surprisingly enough, Haseo. It's noticeable in Vol. 1 when Saku keeps yelling irritatingly at him and Haseo just keeps listening and answering normally.
• Fun with Acronyms: The many meanings of G.U., which show up most prominently in the opening scenes.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • In Reminisce before the battle against Sakaki, he declares that he will destroy "those who have betrayed him" first, referring to Atoli. Guess who becomes his target during most of the battle.
  • Despite the notation in Gameplay and Story Segregation on the topic of PKs, Haseo is still feared for his prowess, potentially turning it into a Justified Trope; if you fight a PKer, there's a chance they'll express surprise and panic at the sight of Haseo showing up to help a potential victim, even more if you manage to catch them in the act again. The only one that doesn't show this fear is Bordeaux, who will pop up sometimes during story events, threaten Haseo, and often come close to PKing him before someone else shows up to defuse the situation.
  • Kuhn's Magus is probably the easiest Avatar battle outside of the original AIDA <Anna> fights, even compared to Pi's Tarvos, your introductory boss battle to Avatar fights. This works in two ways: one with Magus being one of the easier Phases from the original quadrilogy aside from the bud ability (which Kuhn has and uses), and with the absolute beatdown Skeith gives Magus in the cutscene when Skeith goes berserk outside of Haseo's control.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • While preparing for the arena tournament in Vol 1, Silabus asks if Haseo knows any Clerics; there's a fair chance you'd already taken him off adventuring with Atoli.
  • Even though the game constantly picks on the topic of PK'ers predating on anyone, you never get assaulted by one, unless in story events or if you choose to enter in a Battle Area and face either one or a horde of monsters.
  • In a cutscene in the first game Atoli prevents Haseo from kicking a Lucky Animal. At any other point before that when she is in your party she will never complain. No longer applies after, especially after a cutscene showing her eagerness to kick a Lucky Animal, required for a quest, showing her Character Development.
    • Last Recode takes this a step further: the easiest way to kick a Lucky Animal without chasing it is to get close enough your party members will make a break for it to kick it; so long as it doesn't notice Haseo, it won't run away. This includes Atoli, so it's entirely possible you can take her to another one of her scripted areas and Atoli will beeline for it with this A.I. in effect even before her Character Development being okay with it.
  • Haseo's in-game character level depends on how you grind his character, but story segments routinely describe how difficult battles and dungeons are with reference to what level Haseo's character is expected to be at the time rather than what you ground it to. This can lead to a somewhat contradictory display of a tough battle he barely wins in the cutscene when in actual combat he's winning with relative ease or vice versa.
  • In addition to above, the Arena Battles reflect this the hardest and most infamously in Rebirth, where the fight with Alkaid is intended for Haseo to barely inch by before his opponent pulls a Beast Awakening and thrashes him enough to use his Avatar. It's possible, and in Last Recode incredibly probable thanks to the accelerated grind, for Haseo to be so overleveled that Alkaid's attack does scratch damage as a mild inconvenience at worst, but Haseo still gets floored and forces him into desperation.
  • While Haseo and Atoli are the closest thing to an Official Couple the game has, it's possible to send the Marriage Promise Card to anyone else. So Haseo can go chasing after Atoli instead of Shino towards the finale of Volume 3, only to marry someone like Endrance due to the Promise Card.
• Gag Dub: Last Recode's parody mode.
• Gambit Roulette: Ovan's ridiculously convoluted master plan... goes horribly awry...
• Genki Girl: Tabby and Atoli.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: A partial example, because the flea in question was a major boss in the R:1 games and drove the plot for the last quarter of Redemption, but still had absolutely zero foreshadowing regarding his presence in the story or even that he was still around after R:1. You spend most of the series chasing after Tri-Edge but when you finally defeat him, Cubia suddenly shows up.
  • Very observant players of the first game series might have seen it coming: Cubia is specifically mentioned in .hack//Quarantine to be the "shadow" of the Key of Twilight, born when it manifests its power. Therefore, when the Epitaphs were referred to as the Key in this series, alarm bells went off in some players' heads.
  • This was also told straight-up to anyone who managed to obtain the Terminal Disk with the special edition release of Rebirth, then later included in every copy of the Last Recode compilation, which is the prequel to the games' lore and why The World R:1 was destroyed and rebuilt as R:2, which revealed the reason why the R:1 servers were destroyed is because one of the game developers wanted to PREVENT another Cubia from emerging, thus stole one of the Epitaphs, only for their coworker to continue their experiment in creating a Dummy-AI to run everything, and NO-ONE in the main cast had any idea that would happen. So...yeah, it was explained, but was meant to be an unexpected snarl to Ovan's master plan.
• The Glomp:
  • Gaspard gives these out.
  • Atoli on Haseo after the first arena match in Volume 1.
• A God Am I: Sakaki. It doesn't last
• Going Critical: The damage that Cubia wreaks across the internet threatens to cause the real world's nuclear power plants to suffer meltdowns, which would wipe out humanity.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: In the climax of the third volume, Zelkova sends emails to the entire player database asking for them to join in the fight to save the game and the real world. What he gets, aside from Haseo's group, are members of Moon Tree, Kestrel, Icolo, and others, all working towards that exact goal. What's especially amazing about this sequence is that the Arena rankers that Icolo leads were all stated to have answered the call merely because Haseo asked. It's notable, because, only a short time prior, due to Sakaki's machinations and framing Haseo as a cheater (conveniently leaving out Kuhn and Endrance), which DID have repercussions for Haseo's reputation in-game and in the forums up until the Cubia crisis. That the Rankers easily answered the call, because Haseo asked via Zelkova, shows that Sakaki's lies ultimately failed and how respected Haseo actually is, though the testimonies of Antares, Sirius, and Taihaku likely helped clear Haseo's name.
• Gossipy Hens: Trifle is a minor guild of eccentric gossips and Fan Girls. Saku is a member.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Barring Bordeaux, IYOTEN, and Asta, most villains can fall into Well-Intentioned Extremist territory or are simply pawns in Ovan's or Sakaki's games, with or without conscious knowledge. "Tri-Edge" Azure Kite is Aura's method of trying to stop AIDA herself, most Arena enemies perform a Heel–Face Turn later on or are infected by AIDA, and even Ovan is just trying to perform a Suicide by Cop with Haseo because he can't stop the AIDA power in his arm himself. This is especially notable with Endrance and Alkaid, who are major arc villains of Volume 1 only to become two of Haseo's strongest allies by the end of Volume 2. Even the exceptionally antagonistic Bordeaux turns out to be no different from Haseo with a much less healthy background and pulls a Heel–Face Turn postgame in an attempt to heal and mend, and IYOTEN and Asta are among those who answered Haseo's Gondor Calls for Aid, along with Bordeaux and other PKs. The only ones who are truly black and can't be wholly redeemed are Sakaki and Cubia, but even then, Cubia is excusable because it's not sapient to begin with^note no matter what the non-canon XXXX manga that made him a sentient AI would tell you, so has no concept of morality to be considered truly evil, leaving Sakaki^note a ten-year-old boy who knew full well what he was doing and damn proud of it, as the only truly evil main character in the entire story.
• Guide Dang It!: Trying to complete the Book of 1000. For example, trying to get the enemies, it tells you the type and how many there are, but not where they can be found, and going through the game normally only gives you about 60 to 70 percent completion of that book, which means you'll have to explore areas and attempt to figure out the Area Word system to get every possible combination per game.
  • There's also the fact that, for some books, one logged area may fill it faster than another. For example, hitting enemies with the bike fills up the bike book faster than just riding around on the bike itself, and counterattacks and total enemy kills fill the arena book faster than just gaining WP. The game does not tell you this.
  • Two of the side-quests in each volume also count: completing the Lucky Animal and Bikman's portrait sidequests. Any other quest is usually pretty straight forward, but certain players come on only at certain times or in certain areas and Bikman gives you no hints aside from gender and whether the character is a human or a beast, and completing Dr. Pao's Lucky Animal listing is dependent on whether an area is a field or dungeon, your level, and the field's level. Guide Dang It!
• Guns Akimbo: Haseo's Xth Form has the power to use dual guns.
• Gun Kata: Haseo gains this with his final "Xth-Form", where he wields two guns with bladelike attachments. In a typical Short-Range Long-Range Weapon, his special moves using that guns are performed close range as he both slashes and shoots; also used in the one of the last cutscenes. The game's juggle reaction to specific attacks mean that one can use the guns to juggle an opponent continuously until they die. Of course, said ability can only used by Haseo, until one realizes that the in-game Doppleganger is able to replicate his guns too and hence can use said trick back on you. Frustration ensues.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • A rather unusual case. When he was younger, Haseo's player Ryou Misaki was the antagonist PK Sora in The World v1, but loses his memory of it when Sora is data-drained by Skeith at the end of .hack//SIGN, putting Ryou in a coma. He later goes on to become the hero of the GU games and reunite with Skeith, within which is a copy of his lost self when eventually reconciles and fuses back into himself before achieving his Xth form.
  • A straighter example would be Endrance, one of Volume 1's main villains, who saves Haseo from being put into a coma in Volume 2. Though even that serves as a diversion or Heel-Heel-face-Turn, when Endrance is later revealed to be ELK from the original games.
  • Also, some of Kestrel's members, including the reviled IYOTEN and Asta, become Haseo's allies toward the end of Volume 3, though it's safer to say that they're cases of Enemy Mine, as there's no indication they've given up their PK-ing ways once The World is safe from Cubia's rampage. The greater crisis merely forces them on Haseo's side. The Moon Tree captains that had previously sided with Sakaki become "good guys" as well, more justifiable once Sakaki's crimes had been exposed by the next volume.
  • However, of the Kestrel members, Bordeaux is a straight-up example. While she also still seems to be a proud PK-er, she's the only one who gives Haseo her member address and she herself has stopped trying to PK or harass him or those close to him. She justifies it as wanting to get closer to PK him, but it becomes very obvious she legitimately wants to make amends and befriend him properly, as reading between the lines show the two of them are very much alike in many ways and it's implied she noticed that, but their otherwise-similar dysfunctions caused to become bitter enemies at first.
• He Knows About Timed Hits: Justified, as the game takes place in a game that uses what appear to be PS2 controls.
  • Played with as of "Last Recode". While most anime versions tend to show a controller similar to that of a PlayStation controller - and in contrast with the originals - "Last Recode" mutes the voices whenever a button is mentioned, so the subtitles will say a button but the character might be saying something else to fit the actual controller they're using. Silabus in certain email chains also mentions using the portable virtual reality device called an M2D to play as well, which looks more like a cross between a joystick and a gaming mouse, making for probably radically different controls.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Haseo has one after Shino becomes comatose. The later half of .hack//Roots is Haseo, having completely snapped from losing Shino, training and viciously hunting down Tri-Edge. In six months' time from Shino's coma to the beginning of Rebirth, he's still BSOD-ing, only now he's reached level 133, and killed so many PKs on his way to find Tri-Edge he gains his nickname, "The Terror of Death". Though this is borderline as Word of God has said that the Roots story wildly diverged from what was intended and developed for the G.U. Games, explaining the many inconsistencies and Out of Character moments.
  • Also in Reminisce when Haseo discovers that Ovan is Tri-Edge.
  • Atoli suffers BSODs a number of times through the first two games. Especially in Reminisce, where she starts killing members of her guild, thanks to Sakaki's manipulation of her emotions.
• Hidden Depths: Most characters apply, as many of them are playing the game casually, roleplaying, or quiet about their real life situations. You'd find some surprising things in the bonus materials. If you send greeting cards and raise affection with your allies, they email you more frequently, and tell you more about their jobs and such in real life.
• Hidden Eyes: Shino, in the real world.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Cubia comes a little after Ovan activates the Rebirth, with no indication beforehand that he would appear; the only way you would know is if you had taken a look at pre-release previews and promotional material.
• Hot-Blooded: Haseo, Matsu, Sakaki, Saku and the list goes on...
• Hopeless Boss Fight: In form of cutscene in the fall of Haseo.
• Horrible Judge of Character: A forum user using the username "Train Dog" always lusts after beautiful female Chaotic PKs who PK him and steal his rare weapons in The World.
• Humans Are Bastards: Within "The World's" history, which can be accessed on its website before logging into the game proper. Humans were once the majestic elves, blessed by the gods (see Our Elves Are Different below), but they got too proud and were "cursed" with humanity. They quickly deteriorate in morality and take up war and domination, which quickly becomes humanity's defining characteristic. The history gets worse from there and it's implied that the constant warring will cause the end of The World.
• 100% Completion: The Book of 1000.
• Hypocrite: Sakaki and Matsu of Moon Tree constantly berate Haseo for being a PKK, stating that PKKs are no better than PKs. In a later quest, Matsu tells Haseo it's part of Moon Tree's duties to go into random areas and prevent PKers from attacking their victims.
  • A two-fold specific example: while Sakaki might be able to get away with it, Matsu is violent and a former PK himself, and challenges Haseo to a fight in the same dungeon when Haseo is revealed to have attacked a PK earlier... despite Haseo preventing the attack and Matsu not even noticing it.
  • PKs generally detest getting PKed themselves, and complain that a PKK like Haseo is a killjoy ruining their fun.
  • Gameplay wise Alkaid accusing Haseo of cheating. To show her "advanced skill" that leads to Haseo accidentally releasing his Avatar in despair she will pull out a free beast mode awakening and combo him once you lower her HP enough. If you're overleveled and knock out her two partners first then it will literally come out of nowhere just to justify her "strength".
• Identity Amnesia: Haseo is actually Sora from .hack//SIGN, but doesn't remember any of it.
• Idiot Hero: A forum user using the username "Train Dog" always lusts after beautiful female Chaotic PKs who PK him and steal his rare weapons in The World. Other forum users invoked this trope by calling Train Dog an idiot in the threads he starts regarding his lusting after the PKs that PK him and steal his rare weapons.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: In the fight against Innis, Atoli's avatar, Haseo constantly yells to her in and between the cutscenes trying to bring her out of AIDA's control without having to resort to Data Drain.
• Idle Animation: Everyone has one, mostly being them doing a stretch or the like.
• Inevitable Tournament: There's one for each game. However with each passing game the stakes gets bigger and bigger...
• Implacable Man: Dopplegangers. Once they spot you out on a field, they will not stop chasing after you. You can run like hell to another part of the map to get away, but it will continue to slowly walk towards you, one step at a time. Ducking into a Battle Area to fight another monster will not stop it from walking right in after you.
• Improbable Age: Sakaki. He's 10, but his speech patterns and vocabulary are of someone far older and sophisticated.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Nearly all of the equipment obtained from Doppelgangers (with the exception of the DG-0), and the Redemption-exclusive DG-Z dual guns, which has a chance to take off 95% of an enemy's HP in a single shot. Sadly, the last one is also a Bragging Rights Reward, see above.
• Insult Backfire: More than once when Haseo calls out Yata on his manipulative streak.
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: Many places. Most literally in Hulle Grantz Cathedral.
• Interface Spoiler: It's possible to get certain plot-relevant Crimson VS cards long before the events they depict occur, spoiling such things as Sakaki getting hijacked by AIDA.
• Ironic Echo:
  Haseo in Volume 1: "More power! Power, power, power, POWER!"
  Haseo in Volume 3, after his "Rebirth": "Power? What good is having power now?"
• Jack of All Stats: Blade Brandier class. The damage output is somewhere between Twin Blade and Edge Punisher, not as fast as Twin Blade and Tribal Grappler, but faster than heavily armored class as Lord Partizan.
• Jekyll & Hyde: The AIDA infecting Ovan sometimes takes over and PKs those close to him. The most notable victims were Shino and Aina.
• Jerkass: Haseo, initially. Played for Laughs with Death Grunty.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Haseo starts out as a total jerk, but after a little Character Development he becomes easily one of the nicest characters in the series.
  • Both Alkaid and Endrance are minor antagonists and Climax Bosses in volume 1 - the former being hotheaded and easily enraged, the latter haughty and dismissive. Both have moments in Volume 2 where they patch things up with Haseo and later fall in love with him, becoming two possible marriage Promise Endings.
• Just Eat Gilligan: Possibly an example of Gameplay and Story Segregation. Watching Salvador Aihara's videos in the news app spells out the Sakaki plot twist far in advance, but you're never able to confront Sakaki about it or even bring the subject up at all, despite how relevant it is to the plot. You'd think Haseo, watching this at his computer, would consider the implications of Sakaki being linked to the doll syndrome epidemic a huge red flag and tell either Atoli or G.U. immediately, especially since Haseo hated the guy all along.
• Knight of Cerebus: Bordeaux infected by AIDA is hidden for a large portion of volume 2 even in her conversations with others. Which makes her PK'ing Alkaid and reveal of her infection shortly afterwards the moment where G.U. starts to lessen the humor and use of quirky side characters; even Silabus and Gaspard don't get that much screen time for the remainder of volume 2.
• Lag Cancel: One of the most efficient ways to attack with a Broadsword is to hold the Guard button as soon the hit lands, it will cancel completely the horrible lag it leaves. In Vol. 1 this made a Broadsword as fast, if not faster, as Dual Swords.
• Large Ham:
  • Piros the Third, Gabi, Sakaki, and Salvador Aihara.
  • The final duel against Ovan in his avatar form, Corbenik 2nd, in Vol. 3 is almost made of this.
  SURPASS YOUR LIMITS!!!
  • The AIDA-infected bayonet in Volume 3.
  "FEED ME!!!"
  • Haseo. He's possibly the largest ham in the entire series.
• Late Character Syndrome: Several of your party members, while possessing great abilities, join very late in the game (or worse, when the game already ends) and are outclassed by others in terms of usefulness.
• Latin Lover: Salvador Aihara wants to be one so badly it hurts to watch.
• Laughing Mad: Haseo after he awakens his avatar for the first time.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Haseo versus Kuhn in Vol. 1. When Haseo has to be taught a thing or two about humility and how avatar can be dead dangerous if overused..
• Limit Break: The Awakenings that can be activated once the "Morale" gauge is filled, which can be done e.g. by doing Rengekis or healing your party members.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Everyone who isn't a member of G.U. (save for Zelkova, Kaede, Sakaki, and a very select few others) is generally unaware of the deeper and darker sides of The World. That is, until the climax of the final volume, when all of Haseo's friends and allies, and even some enemies, show up to help him beat Cubia - at that point, they've all caught on to varying degrees.
  • Played with by Antares. Antares is in a position to know a lot more about what's going on than most regular players you encounter, and seems to have more knowledge than others, but always plays it off - he was on Team Kuhn in the arena, but claimed he was just hired to do a job, and always seems to know everything Haseo needs to advance (especially his Job Extensions) despite not playing an Adept Rogue and acting as if he's "just" a mentor. Late into the second game, though, he guides us, using another character from Haseo's past, to a Lost Ground where he can obtain Haseo's ultimate scythe and the other Epitaph Users weapons, and reveals that he was passing on information left to him by a mutual friend in Phyllo, who knew more than most characters. Antares thus had access to information, but was willfully ignorant of all the details, focusing more on just helping fulfill a friend's dying wish and then just enjoying the kid he was training.
• Love Freak: Atoli. Endrance becomes one from Vol. 2 on.
• Ma'am Shock: Haseo starts calling Pi an old hag after she calls him an unruly child, much to her ire. That pretty much sets the tone for their relationship for a while. Saku gets in on the act later too.
• Madness Mantra: Someone infected by AIDA generally has one of these.
• Magic Staff: Used by the Harvest Cleric class.
• Manga Effects: Many of the in-engine cutscenes use Cross-Popping Veins, a Sweat Drop, etc. to illustrate the characters' moods. Haseo gets a lot of these thanks to his moody temper and general role as grumpy cast tsukkomi in comedy scenes.
• Master of None: In-universe, the Adept Rogue character class is generally viewed as inferior to those who value statistics over skill; while the Adept Rogues have versatility due to the ability to wield multiple weapons, they have lower stat increases and slower skill gains when compared to other classes.
  • Haseo is unusually powerful for an Adept Rogue. This is commented on by several people on the forums, who are amazed he's such a high-level player with that class. His power with the class is well justified as he was only one of two people (the other being Taihaku) to finish the Forest of Pain event, a 100 floor dungeon which nabbed him multiple levels and as a reward skipped him right to his final job extension and majorly boosted his stats. It helps that the 3 classes he chose mesh well together, basically making him a Lightning Bruiser. Even after his De-power and even ignoring Skeith, once he regains his levels, Haseo remains a terrifying force for an Adept Rouge. And that's BEFORE Xth and 5th Forms.
• Meaningful Name: Many of them. Justified in that the character names were intentionally picked by their respective players. Lampshaded by minor NPC "angel hair".
  • Haseo's name especially. His name is an alternate reading of the name of the famous Japanese poet, Matsuo Basho. This is significant because his previous character Sora (of whom he remembers nothing) was named after Basho's disciple Sora Kawai.
  • Minor NPC Henako's name is a variation on "henna ko" or "weird girl." She lives it.
  • Many, many minor NPC names correlate with their personality or appearance. An NPC called "angel hair" ^note which she will gladly explain to you as a type of thin, white strand of pasta; that is, an even thinner version of Capellini has a notably white, thin strands of hair on her NPC model.
  • Certain story-related keywords are more obvious than others. Delta Blurry Obsessive Slacker for example is all about Atoli, who takes things slower, obsesses over Sakaki, and who's hiding most of her true personality away for most of Volumes 1 and 2.
• Men Don't Cry: Said by Shino toward Haseo before she fell into coma in the beginning, and later by Alkaid in Reminisce. More like "Boys Don't Cry", but still.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Pi and Kuhn both play with this in volume 1 while teaching Haseo about the Avatars. Pi gets infected by AIDA and nearly goes berserk, causing Haseo to use Skeith to calm down her Tarvos, but she gets better after a brief moment of passing out once the fight's over. Kuhn fights Haseo in the Area and looks like he's about to become a Lost One when Haseo loses control over Skeith and Data Drains him, only for Kuhn to turn out fine due to Magus' Propogation ability restoring his data.
  • Averted by Antares, who seems to avoid any actual issues through the series.
• Metaphorgotten: Wise Grunty's sayings tend to end up in this way.
• Mighty Glacier: Lord Partizan and Edge Punisher classes deal lots of damage, but are relatively slow in combat.
• Mind Rape: Atoli at the hands of Sakaki.
• Minigame: Two, in fact! The Steam Bike racing and from the second game, Crimson VS. Crimson VS is essentially a collectible card game, it is different than most card games in which you assemble your deck, and instead of directly battling enemies, you upload your deck to the internet and the server will automatch your deck against other people depending on your rank. The genius of this is that all you need to do within the game is assemble the deck, upload it, and you can go on playing GU, advancing in the plot, or do whatever. Then after some time, you can return to check your Crimson VS progress. Even better, battle replays will give you some sort of an idea to beat that particular opponent if you lost and replay wins hints you at combos that work. Incidentally, the Crimson VS all-time champion is Gaspard.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Happens sometimes when reading the news/forums after tragic game events. e.g. Finding out that Usagimaru & Rei-chan from the last game are a famous comedy duo at the same time that you find out Alkaid's player nearly died when Bordeaux PK'ed her. Made worse if you have a rather cheery background / music set up at the time.
  • Also present when Alkaid gives Haseo an item that has unintentional romantic implications (her reaction is hilarious) but that causes Haseo to have an extremely melancholy flashback at the same time.
• The Most Wanted: Chaotic PKs are placed on a blacklist for bounty hunters to kill. These are the worst of the worst player killers who have completed a quest to enter this blacklist. Bounty hunters can PKK them for special rewards. Entering this blacklist gives the player killers Boss Subtitles that show up that can add to their fear factor against non-bounty hunters.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Haseo after Data Draining Magus, Kuhn's Avatar, and nearly putting him in a coma.
  • Sirius has one complete with the The Scream once he has the AIDA infecting him drained and Endrance tells what happened to Alkaid.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast:
  • Haseo, The Terror of Death.
  • Skeith, the other Terror of Death.
  • The in-game forums states the Chaotic PK'ers. They have even a special Red Baron codename.
  • Many PKers give themselves these names like Madame Insane and Punisher Mitch.
• Neck Lift: Several times. One amusing example would be your first meeting with Alkaid.
• Never Trust a Trailer: Both of the On the Next trailers are packed with misdirection and lies about the next volume's story:
  • The trailer in Rebirth for Reminisce includes the infamous "AIDA's observation room!" line by Gabi which is never said in the actual game. The trailer in general suggests that the AIDA Server will take up a large portion if not most of the volume: instead it covers as little as the first hour.
  • The trailer in Reminisce for Redemption suggests that Xth Form will be used against Ovan instead of being just the last 10% of the story. Cubia isn't mentioned at all, either.
• New Media Are Evil: Several news articles and the like that can be accessed from Haseo's desktop discuss both the benefits and drawbacks of recent technology, though more than a few cover the detrimental effects "online gaming" has had on the populace.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Eliminating AIDA by using Corbenik's Rebirth to reset the Internet? Congratulations, you've created Cubia.
• No Cutscene Inventory Inertia: Haseo and all other characters use whatever weapons they have equipped during cutscenes, except for prerendered scenes, which always show them with the weapons they have when they first join the party.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The fight against Magus, when Haseo's avatar goes berserk, is probably the most brutal, one-sided fights of the entire game. Nothing in this is treated with anything but horror and shock from everyone watching it and even Haseo, who's still an arrogant prick at this point, is terrified at what how brutally his out of control avatar is thrashing Magus, futelessly beggining it to stop.
• No Sense of Direction: Based on what happened early in Volume 1, Gaspard. One has to wonder if he is aware of the map function in the game at all.
• No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom: You know the game really wants you to follow the plot to the next point when it denies you the chance to ask any allies to join your party to go leveling up and doing side-quests. In an exploration sense, some areas really are straight-forward with no alternate paths of exploration.
  • It gets better with the "All party members are Busy so get on with the plot!" stuff in the latter two volumes, where most party members are usually always available.
• Not Quite Saved Enough: The original version of "The World" met its demise when its physical servers were destroyed in a fire. What information they could save from the original game's code had to be merged with another game in order to create "The World R:2".
• Ominous Walk: Taihaku really likes to do this during the match against him.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: In the forum posts Kaki Leader constantly teases ωRice by calling him "Butt Rice". Soon the other forum posters take a notice to his hilariously unflattering nickname.
• One Game for the Price of Two: Averted with Last Recode; instead of having to buy each volume individually as for the original PS2 versions, it contains all four volumes.
• Opaque Nerd Glasses: Wise Grunty.
• Our Elves Are Different: The backstory of "The World" reveals that elves were created in the image of its god, the Elder Deity called Sol, who loved them so much that he and every other deity and creature blessed them (except for Cernunnos, the Lord of the Dead, created from the spirit the Elder Deity's deceased younger brother, who withheld his blessing). The blessings essentially made the elves into demigods. Unfortunately, they grew proud and demanded to become true gods. In response, Sol furiously took away all the elves' blessings, turning them into humans.
• Out of Character: Haseo himself has moments like this in Vol. 1 if you send cards to people. Considering how much of a jerk he is in that game, it can be strange how nice he acts in some of his messages. This is lampshaded by Atoli in one of her responses.
  • It's simultaneously a clue that something serious is happening and that he's faking it when Kuhn becomes serious following the avatar fight between him and Haseo in Volume 1's tournament matches and it looks like Skeith is about to kill him out of Haseo's control. Right after this, he reveals he was faking it to teach Haseo a lesson and goes right back to his easy-going self.
• Paparazzi: Salvador Aihara, who actually stumbles into an important story. While it expectedly does get him into trouble, certain factors allow him to be a rare vindicated case by the end, especially since it becomes clear that his investigations inadvertedly help prove CC Corp's unspeakable corruption and negligence this time around.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: It's possible to level grind on enemies near or at the maximum level attainable in Volume 3 - get a steam bike upgrade that allows you to stun enemies when you collide with them, then go to field areas around levels 140-150 where the objective is "Defeat the Boss". Ram the boss with your steam bike to stun them for the whole battle, and they'll likely be too slow to get attacks in during the short periods that stun status lets them move, and make sure to bring plenty of SP-restoring items and spell items so you'll rack up hits fast. Have fun chaining Rengekis. Watch out for Doppelgängers, though.
  • The area Delta: Screaming Idling Princess. It's a Level 11 area that is actually a glitched mirror of a quest area. It has the monster Azul Sachem, a Level 90 monster, even in Vol. 1 (where the level cap is 50). While in Vol. 1 it's named "-" and has very low stats, in the sequels they take their regular stats, so you can go in there at the beginning of Vol. 2 to Level Grind.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • Musics, Wallpapers and some Movies inside the game if you didn't get before moving to the next Vol. or worse, if you started playing in the second or third Volume.
  • Greeting Cards are great for boosting relationships with party members, but they come in finite amounts—once you use them up (like the Promise Card, of which you ONLY get one), they're gone for good.
  • Some items can only be found in the volume that they show up in, so if you fail to get the item in that volume, you can never achieve 100% Completion for Ryu Book IV.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Haseo's interaction with Sakubo, especially in earlier parts of the story where he's pretty much a jerk to everyone else.
  • He also has a few moments with Gaspard.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Despite beating all of the others, Skeith is the smallest of the Avatars.
• Pistol-Whipping: Depending on how you left your Steam Gunners' action settings, they'll only bash, and at times slash, enemies with their guns.
• Playable Epilogue: Reconnect, the fourth volume added in last Recode, mainly acts as a denouement to the original trilogy instead of introducing a slew of new problems.
• Player Killing: Player killers, or PKs, who prey on players who do not consent to being killed by other players are generally considered griefers. The situation is so bad that CC Corporation has set up an arena for consensual battles and a program for bounty hunters to reward player killer killers, or PKKs, who kill off PKs who prey on unwilling players, and provide special rewards for those who kill off the worst of the worst PKs who are labeled Chaotic PKs and therefore are placed on a blacklist of the most wanted PKs.
  • Interestingly, the Chaotic PKs are chosen through a competition by CC Corps on a regular basis. One of the quests you can go on in the third game has PCs with bounty hunter licenses act to test the Chaotic candidates, who are set up in a dungeon. Thus, the so-called "worst of the worst" are technically sanctioned in their roles.
• Point Build System: It's part of how Adept Rogues are initially customized. They can have up to three classes, but some, like Steam Gunner, and the Caster classes, take up enough that only one other class can be added on top of them, tops.
  • In addition, the system is designed so that it's impossible to get more than three classes: an Adept Rogue gets four points to spend, but only three classes (Blade Brandier, Edge Punisher, and Twin Blade) cost one each, meaning that you can get them and have a useless point left over, get two of those and one two point class, get two of the two pointers (Flick Reaper, Tribal Grappler, and Lord Partizan), or one of the "basic" classes and one of the three-pointers.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Saku and Bo, to the point that their character's hat indicates which one is active (Saku has the "sun" side pointing up, while Bo has the "moon" side).
• Power Fist: The Tribal Grappler class, which also fits Fragile Speedster.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Icolo members have shades of this trope.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: In the beginning of Redemption, when Atoli wants Haseo to find Melo Grunty together. It works.
• Purple Prose: Endrance borders on this with his florid love speeches from Vol. 2 on. Before that, he's the master of the Cryptic Conversation.
• Race for Your Love: In the end, Haseo chooses to chase after Atoli rather than stay with Shino.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Haseo. The first times he uses his avatar and the rematch against IYOTEN and Asta are notable examples, since they emit a red glow that could only be possible due to Skeith's influence.
• Red Herring: The most famous in the .hack series: Azure Kite is not Tri-Edge, Ovan is.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Haseo who wears red and black to Ovan who is in blue and white. One is fiery, hotheaded and the other is calm, logical and manipulative to no end.
• Redemption Equals Death: Sort of. In Redemption, Sirius, who lost himself after using AIDA for power in Reminisce, becomes a Lost One after entering the Sage Palace in order to save Taihaku and find a way to cure Alkaid.
• Rage Against the Mentor: Haseo towards Ovan, especially after the reveal of his identity as Tri-Edge. Prior to the activation of the Rebirth Haseo gives an amazing speech chewing the hell out of him.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Averted with the CC Corp higher ups this time around. Unlike Lios and the system admins in R1, who got better through Character Development and gave the .hackers their full support when the true scope of the threat was apparent, the current batch of CC admins are completely useless at best; more often, though, they're either obstructive, outright malicious, or damaging The World and its players through their sheer incompetence. They're painfully out of their depth and have no idea how to handle the AIDA epidemic, bowing down to the demands of a psychotic ten-year-old boy and granting him ultimate power over the system (which he, of course, abuses for all it's worth) in a desperate attempt to keep up the charade of control. They then attempt to cover up the entire fiasco by falsifying evidence and looking to scapegoat Ovan for the whole thing, despite knowing it goes far deeper, although it thankfully backfires thanks to the separate efforts of Professor Sugai, and an anonymous Yata. The only CC Corp members with a clue seem to be the ones in your own party, and none of them have much power in the company. Any others, like Pi's older brother Jun Bansyoya, who did have more power, were made a scapegoat like Junichiro Tokuoka before him. Bansyoya's log also indicate that Lios and the system admins in R1 were a minority, and the rest of CC Corp was, and always had been greedy, self-interested, and short-sighted bastards Another potential example is Genius from LINK, who was indicated to be active during this era, who shows SOME better self-awareness about the issue much like late-game Lios did.
• The Red Mage: Macabre Dancers are able to use healing, attack, and status magic, but do not learn the highest level spells of the other magic classes (Harvest Clerics and Shadow Warlocks). This class is the only class that can learn how to cast Status Buff and Status Infliction Attack spells by using skill points instead of requiring the use of a consumable item in order to do so, and also have some decent damage to their regular attacks if they need to resort to those.
• Relationship Values: Each party member gets a Relationship Value, which rises as Haseo spends more time with them or gives gifts. A party member who has maximum affection in Redemption allows you to have a Friendship/Marriage Ending with him/her.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter:
  • Chim Chims.
  • All the Lucky/Unlucky Animals fill this role too and are also fun to kick around.
  • The Grunties also fall into this trope.
• Role-Playing Game 'Verse
• Rousing Speech: Double subverted in Vol. 1, when Piros the 3rd repeatedly fails to convince a high school student to follow his dreams. At the end of the quest, he finally succeeds.
• Running Gag: The Arena Commentator seems to have troubles when dealing with the guest commentators for the Tournaments.
• Say My Name / Skyward Scream: Haseo & Pi.
  • Haseo is constantly saying other peoples' names. It's gotten to the point where he's rarely taken seriously in the fandom because of it.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Ovan's lenses pick up a considerable glare whenever he's being especially mysterious... or dangerous.
• Serious Business:
  • MMORPGs are srs bsns.
  • Also, the conflict between members of Moon Tree and Kestrel, despite neither of the guildmasters being all that worked up about it. However, it seems to be intentionally fanned by Sakaki, given his holier-than-thou attitude.
• Screaming Warrior: Haseo. And about everyone who can fight, actually.
• Shout-Out: A common pairing for the Medic Union trios you'll find in the field has Watson and Doyle.
• Sidekick Creature Nuisance: Haseo regards Death Grunty as one. Which is hilarious, given that Death Grunty is based on himself.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Endrance. After accepting Mia's death, he moves on and latches onto Haseo.
• Sinister Scythe: Used by the Flick Reaper class. This class excels at taking down airborne enemies, and because its normal attack is a Spin Attack, it can take down mobs of enemies. This class is weak against enemies that get too close to the user and to magic, and deals poor amounts of damage per second against single ground-level enemies unless those enemies are weak against scythes.
• Slasher Smile: The only way to properly describe the look on Haseo's face when he first awakens his powers as Skeith's Avatar and prepares to slaughter Bordeaux and her lackeys with it, even while Kuhn and Atoli are screaming at him to stop. In fact, he has this look on his face every time he summons Skeith until the beatdown of Magus.
• Slow-Motion Fall: When Atoli is attacked by AIDA in the end of Volume 1.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The actual plot starts out fast, but it's progress in Rebirth gets buried under Haseo attempting to wake his Avatar and the Demon Palace Tournament, which doesn't go anywhere fast until the match against Bordeaux. Which means spending as much as 20 hours before picking up the actual thread again. Once you hit Bordeaux, the actual plot starts coming back, and by the time you go after Alkaid, the story has re-routed itself and really gets going.
• Sock Puppet:
  • Yata and Nala have the same player, who uses both to further his agenda.
  • Yata and Pi also did this in the prequel anime .hack//Roots as Naobi and Ender.
  • On a related note, Salvador Aihara promotes his own movies in the game forums without identifying who he is.
• Sparkles:
  • Haseo's intro to Saku's obsession with "Master En."
  • Atoli trails glittery sparkles everywhere after her Epitaph is stolen by AIDA. It stops when she gets it back. It is her character data deteriorating, and the hand that is fritering away in the game is useless in real life.
• Spell Book: The Shadow Warlock class uses grimoires.
• Songs in the Key of Panic: When a Doppleganger spawns and notices you nearby, the music will change to what can best be described as exceptionally scary and fear inducing. The tempo of the music increases as it slowly walks towards you (and flashing red screen intensifies as well).
  • Any of Dingo's seven most dangerous P Ks gets special fight music that is darker than the standard field music or area boss battle fights. This applies early on when you're significantly under-leveled; not so much once you hit the halfway point of each volume and have a decent strategy.
• Stalker with a Crush: Saku claims to be constantly pressing the screencapture button when Endrance is on her screen. This is the least of her stalker-ish behavior.
• Steampunk: Not quite this trope, but clearly inspired by it as Lampshaded by minor NPC Boltz. Steam Gunners are a good example.
• Steam Vent Obstacle: Dungeon areas sometimes has a room full of these, along with other Booby Traps. They reduce your SP when you're hit.
• Stepford Smiler: Atoli is a major example.
• Straw Nihilist: Minor NPC Schrodinger and the natives of Netslum Tartarga has shades of this trope.
• Stupid Evil: Some of CC Corp's decisions are so bad you'd think they were trying to get The World shut down, but kowtowing to Sakaki – an Ax-Crazy ten-year-old boy drunk on AIDA – and making him a system administrator is in a category of stupid all on its own.
• Suicide by Cop: Ovan's master plan is to make Haseo become his "cop".
• Superboss: In each volume, if you're following the Bounty Hunter sidequest, there are seven dangerous PKs known as chaotic PKs that will initially be much higher level than you are and with much better equipment, and if you encounter one early enough you're likely to be dead in one hit. Unlike the Doppelgangers, though, they are not scaled to your level.
• Super Move Portrait Attack: All of the Awakenings.
• Super Robot: Piros the 3rd acts like he can't decide whether he's playing the hero in such a show or the robot itself. One of his running gags it to point to the sky and leap as if taking off with rockets, only to turn and run off once gravity asserts itself.
• Superpowered Evil Side:
  • Played for laughs with Natsume.
  • Any Epitaph User who gives in to their Avatar's power.
  • The real Tri-Edge
• Tareme Eyes/Tsurime Eyes: Saku has Tsurime Eyes. Bo has Tareme Eyes. This is how you tell them apart on the party invite list since all you can see is Sakubo's eyes. Saku's hair also flares out to the sides while Bo's curls inwards.
• Tarot Motifs: The consumables that inflict Status Effects are named after Major Arcana cards:
  • "The Death" inflicts Poison, which slowly eats away your HP.
  • "The Moon" inflicts Sleep, renders you immobile and unable to use items, at least until you get attacked.
  • "The Devil" inflicts Curse, which slowly drains your SP.
  • "The Emperor" inflicts Seal, which makes you unable to use Spells or Arts.
  • "The Hanged Man" inflicts Paralysis, which makes you immobile a few times.
  • "The Hermit" inflicts Slow, which makes you slow.
  • "The Fool" and "The Lovers" inflict Confusion and Charm, which makes enemies attack their own allies.
  • "The Wheel"^note named after The Wheel of Fortune inflicts a random status effect.
• Theme Naming:
  • Some of the AIDA attacks are named after programming languages. Algol Laser, Prolog Lazer, and Lisp Tackle are some examples.
  • Pretty much all of Anna and Helen's attacks are named after programming languages, although a few of them were changed in the English translation for no known reason.
    • AIDA Victorian, however, draws its names from more royal or kingly-sounding words, such as Elegant Orb or Excellent Ray. It fits with Sakaki's over inflated self-view.
  • All of the leaders of Moon Tree are named after various trees in Japanese (with Sophora and Zelkova switched to their Latin genus names in the English translation). The guild name itself is a pun (Japanese: "Tsuki no Ki") on one of the Japanese words for the tree Zelkova serrata ("tsukinoki"). Some of these names count as Meaningful Names too.
  • This also applies with members of several guilds in the game, such as the Gem guild.
  • Three of the forum posters are named after the parts of Cocytus. Judecca, Antenora, and Ptolomea, respectively. They also have an arena team named Cocytus-1.
  • The members of the Hetero Trio (in Vol. 3) are genetics terms: Hetero, Axanthic, and Leucistic. The latter two are types of albinism.
• There Are No Therapists: So everyone who needs one just has to work it out with Haseo.
  • Fridge Brilliance kicks in when you remember that this game is set in Japan, where Western therapy and psychology are very uncommon.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: In-universe example: some players from R:1 express disappointment at how R:2 turns out.
• This Is a Drill: Some of the Lord Partizan weapons are gigantic drills.
• Throw the Book at Them: Shadow Warlocks can use their grimoires to deal physical attack (i.e. as a bludgeoning weapon).
• Too Clever by Half: Sakaki.
• Too Many Belts: Haseo, to the point where he's depicted as wearing FIFTY TWO BELTS.
• Trademark Favorite Food:
  • Fish for Melo Grunty, and pickles for Wise Grunty.
  • There's a greeting card that you can send to your party members to find out their Trademark Favorite Food. Some of them are rather surprising, like Atoli's beef bowls.
• Translation Train Wreck: There are a few of them, though these are fixed in Last Recode.
  • When one performs a Counter-Attack in the arena, the English PlayStation 2 version mistakenly calls it a rengeki which means combo attack, when it really should be a hangeki which means counter attack. It also shows the kanji for rengeki (連撃) in the background instead of the kanji for hangeki (反撃) by mistake. Volume 1 also plays the sound for rengeki as well. Volumes 2 and 3 play the correct sound for hangeki, but display the graphics for rengeki. The Windows version fixes this by displaying the correct graphics and playing the correct sound.
• Tsundere:
  • Haseo is a male example of a Type A.
  • Saku (Type A) is also one if you choose to keep her around in Redemption, as well as Bordeaux of all people (Type A, albeit less successfully than Saku) if you choose her in the Wedding Event.
• Too Dumb to Live: A forum user using the username "Train Dog" always lusts after beautiful female Chaotic PKs who PK him and steal his rare weapons in The World.
• Trickster Mentor: Everything Antares does is meant to teach Haseo something. Everything.
• Turtle Island: Netslum Tartarga.
• Two Roads Before You: Ovan sends Haseo an email with this phrase after the latter is Data-Drained by Tri-Edge at the beginning of Rebirth. He gives Haseo a choice: forget about The World and never log in again, or endure harsh trials in order to discover the "truth" about The World.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: The Avatar battles.
• Unfortunate Names: The address of Kestrel's @HOME is Δ Sneering Failing Empire, which implies that Kestrel is a failure of a guild.
• The Unfought: Sometimes chaotic PKs get PKKed before Haseo can begin his Bounty Hunter Sidequest. This results in them being removed from the blacklist. Two examples include Pyro 2 the Mud-Eater and Miku the Liar, so Haseo never fights these.
• The Un-Reveal: Haseo never finds out Yata and Pi once controlled the characters Naobi and Ender, nor does he find out they are responsible for unlocking Ovan's arm.

• Verbal Tic: Each Guild Grunty has one.
  • Death Grunty: "I'm Grunty! You're Haseo! Oink!"
  • Wise Grunty: "'Good and ill fortune are closely interwoven.' That's a proverb I learned from my master. Nero. "
  • Nazo Grunty: "I'm telling Master on you! Naru!"
  • Gao Grunty: "So you want to obtain my manliness for yourself? Haha."
  • Melo Grunty: "I think I smell Death Grunty on you. Mellow."
  • King Grunty: Shu.
  • There's also the Golden Goblins. *gob*
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • The game allows you to run over the little blue critters with your steambike. Also on that note, you get more points towards the Book of 1000 if you hit monsters with the bike!
  • Through trading, you can take back a gift that you just gave to someone, along with some of their other stuff. They'll ask you if you don't want to be friends anymore. Does this count?
  • The Relationship Values. Particularly the replies you can give in email conversations or forums. An example would be making fun (rather harshly) of Gaspard for liking the card game Crimson VS. And all it costs you is a little extra time putting them in your party to make up for it.
  • The worst example could be if Haseo, and thus, you the player, chooses to encourage Saku to disappear from Bo's consciousness when she feels Bo and Endrance don't need her anymore when they have Haseo. What doesn't help is the dickish way he effectively tells her to go die. Probably to help encourage players to convince Saku to stay, which is both the canon and psychologically healthier choice.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Beatrice, a forum poster in Volume 1, views ωRice and Kaki Leader as this.
• Wake-Up Call Boss:
  • Greedy Cervantes. When you first run into him shortly after clearing the Bounty Hunter Test quest in Rebirth, he will inflict a Total Party Kill against your party unless you manage to seriously outsmart him in the battle, you avoid clearing the Bounty Hunter Test quest until you have leveled up, or you avoid entering battle areas until you level up.
  • For avatar battles, Azure Flame God is an odd example since he's actually the 'final boss of Rebirth. This boss has some dangerous attacks that does a lot of damage and it's at this point where you can't just mash attack and tank hits with reckless abandon and still expect to win.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: Take out the enemy party leader in an arena battle to win the battle. Beware that it works both ways, if you fall the enemy team wins.
• White Mage: The Harvest Cleric class, which specializes more on healing and buffing magic rather than offensive ones. This class is great at healing and buffing abilities, but skilled physical attackers can easily take Harvest Clerics down with counter attacks, especially with hangeki attacks in the arena because these counter attacks cancel the magical abilities being attempted. Skilled players can Shoot the Medic First in the arena, so it is much better to teach every member of an arena party healing spells including those that fix Status Effects rather than depending just on a Harvest Cleric for their healing needs. The only real advantage of having a Harvest Cleric in the arena is that one can execute much better healing and buffing spells than the spells that can be purchased from magic shops and be taught to party members.
• Yandere:
  • Madame Insane, one of the minor NPCs wandering Lumina Cloth, became a PK to grief her husband after getting jealous about him talking to another woman. She finds it more effective to torment his character than to scold him in real life.
  • Incidentally, this foreshadows the fact that it turns out to be the reason for Bordeaux constantly harassing Haseo. As revealed in her Promise ending, she found Haseo to be a kindred spirit, something backed up by what we know of her player, but the fact that her own dysfunctions were definitely not endearing her to him, while he was gaining a group of (mostly) much-mentally healthier friends made her envious, even jealous, so she stared harassing them and even let her jealousy control her when she let herself be infected with AIDA. Following her recovery and after the Cubia crisis, she tries to start over by properly exchanging member addresses, though her interactions with Haseo mostly have her being an incredibly obvious Tsundere.
  • Natsume gained a chaotic PK Split Personality embodying this towards Kite, given her continued obsession over him and anything related to him even seven years after, even apparently stalking him, according to Piros.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Regular players can't see battles between Avatars and with AIDA. They see these epic battles as an "instant-KO" move that just causes Haseo to glow briefly. The time-dilation is more explicitly pointed out after the AIDA server incident in Vol. 2.
  • The AIDA server incident at the very beginning of volume 2 is an explicit case of this itself; the whole of the events on the server last about 5 to 10 minutes in real time by Yata's explanation, but can take up to 2 hours of gameplay and is implied to have lasted that long in the game.
• Years Too Early: If you send Challenge greeting card to Antares, he will reply with something around this line.
• You ALL Look Familiar: Justified by the Role-Playing Game 'Verse. It's also a plot point that Atoli is practically a Palette Swap of Shino.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: Most users who are Data Drained in the game go comatose in Real Life. One character almost dies as a result.
• You Should Have Died Instead:
  • According to the Perfect Guide, Saku was created when Bo heard his mother say this about him in comparison to his stillborn twin sister.
  • Sakaki, when defeated after morphing into AIDA <Victorian>.

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