It has nothing to do whatsoever with Dragon Ball.
Tropes used in Dragonsphere:
- Acid-Trip Dimension: The Spirit Plane. Slathan ni Patan has shades of this too, but that's because it's an entire land of Shapechangers.
- Action Girl: Llanie de Summers.
- Brown Note: Reading the Darkness Beast's name aloud is sickening enough to make men feel nauseous.
- Crossing the Desert: You'll need to travel to Soptus ruler and back. If you make a wrong turn, you run out of water and die. There is a Soptus at the desert edge willing to give directions, but he doesn't speak your language, and your understanding of his is rudimentary. The biggest problem: he may think you were Driven to Suicide and give you directions to a volcano that kills you instantly (Soptus version of a suicide booth).
- Chekhov's Gun: The Amulet.
- Copy Protection: The answers to the vine puzzle outside Sanwe's tower can only be found in the manual.
- Deadpan Snarker: The hint-giving narrator has shades of this.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Sanwe
- Eldritch Abomination: The Beasts. The first one isn't that bad, but one look at the second one is enough to make your character stop moving entirely, and imagine all those primal fears, while saying that the thing isn't natural. Also, its very name is written in an unidentified language, and almost makes characters pass out.
- Evil Tower of Ominousness: Sanwe's Tower, obviously enough.
- Fantastic Racism: Humans towards Shapechangers.
- Foreshadowing: The fact that you can't access the entirety of Slathan ni Patan when you're just about to face the Dragon Sorcerer hints that there might be something else you'll do...
- The description of the sky in Slathan ni Patan states that it seems familiar to you, somehow. The same is true of the doll that you receive in that land.
- Also, you can fall down the well at the Market Place, which reveals a fully-rendered and designed area. Genre Savvy players might think that the devs wouldn't go to this extent just to give you a death scene.
- Gargle Blaster: The Soptus Soporific is strong enough to knock a human unconscious after just a sip, or kill them with any more than that.
- The Greys: Bluish bug-eyed Soptus fit the description. They are hinted to be space aliens stranded on this planet. They are the only ones who speak a language different from common.
- Guide Dang It!: Some of the choices you make can render crucial NPC dialogue Permanently Missable, making you unable to continue... without a guide, that is.
- Halfway Plot Switch: You encounter and defeat Sanwe halfway through the game. You also discover you are a shapechanger who was magically made to believe he was the king. The goal then becomes to find the real king while a usurper tries to take advantage of the situation to take the throne.
- Have a Nice Death: It is an Adventure Game after all. The death screens also give you clues, however.
- Human Popsicle: The real king.
- Identity Amnesia: The protagonist himself, who is in fact a shapeshifter named Pid Shuffle.
- Luck-Based Mission: The gambling minigames. And to make matters worse, they're mandatory - You need nine victories the first time around to get three items, and four victories in the second half of the game to get two more items. Expect some frustration, as there is no way to get better at it: The NPC himself tells you it's just luck.
- MacGuffin: The three Powerstones needed to defeat Sanwe. It turns out that only one is necessary.
- Mundane Utility: A teleportation device is used to divert a stream of water onto a red hot floor, in order to cool the floor down and make it crossable.
- No Man of Woman Born: A "powerful" amulet received early in the game is stated to be only usable by one who has been pronounced dead, and is therefore essentially useless for most of the game. In the Final Battle, your opponent mocks you as being "already dead", allowing you to use the amulet against him.
- Only Smart People May Pass: Twice - both the The Butterfly King and the vines around Sanwe's tower demand that you answer questions to progress.
- Press X to Die: Several, such as drinking the contents of a bottle of acid, or jumping down a well.
- Shapeshifting Heals Wounds: Shapechangers can heal injuries by "shaping" the body back into its original state.
- Shifting Sand Land: Soptus Ecliptus.
- Trust Password: The guards at the entrance of Slathan ni Patan will not let you pass, despite you being the king, for concern that you may be replaced by a shapeshifter within. You set up one of these so that you can always prove that you are who you claim to be when you come out. Ironically, you are a shapeshifter; you just don't realise it at first.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Surprise! You're not actually the King!
- Troll: The fairies. They purposefully annoy humans so they can "test their limits". To defeat them be sickeningly polite.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: The Shapechangers, obviously.
- You Are Already Dead: Inverted, it was the one who announced it in the Final Battle who dies instead."You don't even know how to hold a sword. You Are Already Dead!"
