Video Game / EXTRAPOWER: Attack of Darkforce

The first game of the EXTRAPOWER series, released in 2008. A Strategy RPG developed on Sim RPG Maker 95 and released as freeware on Freem!

After the Shakun Star was conquered by Dark Force, Sharkungo flees to Earth to warn humanity about the coming invasion and to gather heroes to fight back. Many factions join together with our heroes, some human and some magical, demonic, or monstrous. Just as many factions stand opposed to them, sometimes aligning with Dark Force and sometimes pursuing their own agendas. The journey takes them across the world to prevent Dark Force's conquests.

The game is available for download here, and is playable with an RPG Maker Run Time Package and after switching the administrative language to Japanese for English computers.

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EXTRAPOWER: Attack of Darkforce provides examples of:

• Admiring the Abomination: Dr. Belhem is in deep admiration of the Bem species. They are an extraterrestrial organism that propagates by assimilating other organisms and slaughtering non-infected members of the host specie. There is already an outbreak of them in Europe, leaving ghost towns behind as their numbers grow. Dr. Belhem has the dangerous idea that the Bem hold the key to human development and always speaks in excitement about how they can shape the future of humanity. You'd think this would make him a clear cut Face–Heel Turn candidate. It doesn't.
• After-Combat Recovery: The game is nice enough to fully restore the team at the end of combat. All HP and MP lost and any defeated characters are restored before the next fight, even in ones that take place sequentially in the story.
• Alien Invasion: The Shakun Star already fell victim to this by the time the game starts. The Earth is next.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Dark Force and everyone in the Dark Force Army, the series Big Bad with ambitions to conquer the universe. They are only ever full antagonists. Even the demon world has a full spectrum of morality.
• Anatomically Ignorant Healing: This becomes a problem when rescuing Daitoku Igor from the Dark Force Army. He's had a mind control device embedded in his brain, and the team has both a doctor and a biologist on hand. The problem is that they know their way around human physiology, but not alien. With the mind control device as wired into his brain as it is, it's impossible for them to even begin to guess how to extract it without damaging his body. With all the unknowns, someone decides that they might as well just rip it out of his head. He does. Somehow, it works, though Daitoku Igor's memory of time working under Dark Force becomes fuzzy for it.
• Antagonist Title: Named after the man who just finished conquering the Shakun Star at the game's start, and who heroes across the EXTRAPOWER universe have to unite together to stop before he takes over and destroys the Earth.
• Adventurer Archaeologist: Professor Ace, allegedly a professor of archaeology but spends his time as the Lovable Coward following Zophy around. It's certainly a good source of adventure, and sometimes riches. Though always the first to run from a fight, he nonetheless follows Zophy into the heart of danger, and surprises everyone when his archaeological expertise means he actually has insight in the adventure at hand. He's even got the hat.
• Arbitrary Mission Restriction: Your hero ranking, necessary for 100% Completion and unlocking the True Final Boss. Often requires performing specific actions or attacks on specific enemies using specific characters, or taking specific decisions, that are either a thematically appropriate challenge for that character or something particularly heroic. An attached document in the game files lists the requirements.
• Artificial Human: Idea, the homunculus maid created by the Dream Demon King to defend his earthly mansion in his absence.
• The Assimilator: The Bem.
• Atlantis: Deep Heaven, complete with classical Greek architecture and temples.
• Attack of the Town Festival: The team enters a village in Iwate Prefecture just in time for a local festival, complete with an exhibition wrestling match! This is fantastic news for Sharkungo, the prince in exile of the Shakun Star and whose Star Yui martial arts greatly resemble professional wrestling, giving him a much needed morale boost as he participates. Unfortunately, the criminal organization Tarantula also launches an attack on the festival in order to kidnap suitably athletic individuals for their nefarious purposes. Even successfully repelling the attack cannot prevent villagers from having been kidnapped, prompting Toyama to join the party against this injustice.
• Awesome Personnel Carrier: The Jaeger 2, the Base on Wheels for the SPICA mercenary group and, later, for the player characters as well. An APC with a comfortably large command center, space for research and medicine, and its plating and missiles make it a powerful presence on the battlefield. It can even transport troops.
• Ax-Crazy: Crown and Fool are only heroes by virtue of being leased to fight for the good guys. They'll happily attack friend and foe alike if they're in range of attacks and there's always the risk of them overtly turning on the team.
• Badass Biker: Gecko Wolf exclusively fights perched atop his motorcycle.
• Badass Cape: Sharkungo and Zophy both gain a cape to go with their hero upgrade. For Zophy his upgrade is optional, but he'll still appear with one when rescuing a pair of children in Washington DC.
• Badass Normal: Between all the superpowered heroes, you have Toriyama who is simply a middle aged wrestler with a shotgun and Davie and Marie, two normal youths who follow Zophy around. Professor Ace would count if he didn't disappear after every fight.
• Base on Wheels: The Jaeger 2, the Awesome Personnel Carrier for the SPICA mercenary group and, later, for the player characters as well. An APC with a comfortably large command center, space for research and medicine, and its plating and missiles make it a powerful presence on the battlefield. It can even transport troops.
• Battle Couple: Toyama and Hamayo are a battle couple in-universe, being a renowned husband-wife tag team wrestling duo. In the events of the game, Toyama alone joins up with the heroes' team, but Hamayo lends her aid for his more powerful transcendental attacks.
• Beach Episode: The gang have one in Hawaii when they have to wait for military transport to continue their journey. With a little bit of downtime, they take a well earned day off and hit the beach.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Dark Force is the most pressing Big Bad of the game, but several other factions are at play which sometimes overlap but all of which are threatening throughout the game:
  • The Yami Clan led by Yoberiade, who target the Hikari Warriors and seek to kill the Rainbow Princess.
  • Tarantula, a Maker of Monsters criminal organization which sometimes coordinates with the Dark Force army, but carries their own agenda.
  • The Bem, a parasitic human-assimilating extraterrestrial organism that seeks to become the dominant lifeform on Earth.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: Several late-game enemies are hard-hitting and durable enough to require multiple combatants and a good strategy to safely defeat. Stone Mack, Sinner Shaper and especially PLASMA BOSS are hard enough to be bosses on their own, but are merely Elite Mook deployed with greater frequency as the game advances.
• Bug War: Against Mensouma's bioroid units. His most common unit is the Spy Fly, giant bipedal dragonflies with hardened, knife-like tails, that Zerg Rush at every stage of the invasion to the very end.
• Building Swing: The purpose of the building monkey enemy, using their elongated arms to swing up and through buildings for better assault ability.
• Bumbling Henchmen Duo: Sunny Day and Funny Face, Dark Force's other recurring duo. Whereas Undata and Mensouma are capable commanders described as Dark Force's two right hands, Sunny Day and Funny Face are always played for comedy when they are fought. If there's a secret to keep, they'll very loudly remind each other what they're not supposed to tell the heroes. If they get defeated in battle, it'll be as much due to their own scatterbrains as anything. And when they return in failure, it'll be on them to scrub the entire mothership clean. Fitting enough, their backstory eventually reveals that even before being recruited into the Dark Force Army, they were bumbling privates who cared more about comedy than their military duties.
• Cap: Sadly a consequence of building the game off Sim RPG Maker 95. Level cap only goes as high as 20, and while Needle・Sandman and Akimoto Wagman would have preferred huge damage numbers in the thousands or even millions, the best they could do was a damage cap of 60 HP. This is also why there are 53 episodes: they couldn't squeeze in any more!
• Character Select Forcing: Certain episodes will require specific characters to be in the party for plot-related reasons, or exclude certain characters.
• Chinese Vampire: Master Wu's usual method of attack is to raise an army of Jiangshi.
• Cool Bike: Gecko Wolf rides this.
• Cool Car: Wagner's group travels in a technologically advanced APC, which becomes the mobile base for most of the game and is even usable in combat.
• Combat Tentacles: Among the repertoire of magic attacks that the pyramid witch Blackberry has available is the Call of Abyss spell, which summons a host of otherworldly tentacles to rise from the floor and thrash the foe.
• Comically Inept Healing: When Daitoku Igor is rescued from the Dark Force army, there is tension on how to remove the mind-control device embedded in his brain. The team has a medical doctor on hand, but the differences between human and alien physiology is too unknown - it's possible to even begin to speculate on what could possibly be a safe operation. In all this drama, someone decides that with so many unknowns, they might as well just rip the device out. And do. Amazingly, this defies all odds and actually works, restoring Daitoku Igor to his pre-brainwashed state.
• Combat Stilettos: Yukiko's regular attacks make full use of her thigh high heels, with a mid-air spin for flourish.
• Completion Meter: Measured as Progress when checked between episodes, but correlates to your Hero Score given at the end of the game and progresses when you perform especially heroic or character specific actions in combat. Playing without consulting the document can still give a respectable middling Hero Rank, but the true final boss and true end are tied to completion.
• The Corruption: The Bem are the clearest example. Dark Force occasionally uses Dark Energy to corrupt unwilling participants into evil versions of themselves to serve him.
• Counter-Attack: Everyone gets this if attacked normally within their attack radius.
• Creature-Hunter Organization: Has three:
  • PMEC: A general monster-hunting company founded and funded by Platinum, who is joined by her friends Kurogane and Emerald. Enjoys a Friendly Rivalry with Fei and Ri=ko given the occasional overlaps in their targets.
  • SPICA: A mercenary organization led by Werner von Gerstenbüttel employing tactical and scientific experts. They focus on fighting the Bem, a parasitic species that assimilates humans and transforms them into grotesque monsters. Employs Gradius, a bem, as a weapon against his own species.
  • Kinkreikan: Technically a secret organization that participates throughout global politics, commerce and intelligence. They employ Fei Hong Rong and Ri=ko to eradicate monsters in East Asia, frequently Jiangshi created by Master Wu.
• Crisis Crossover: EXTRAPOWER: Attack of Darkforce is technically this for the EXTRAPOWER series, despite being the first game released. Characters created over the course of Lucky Lamp Project's members lives unite together to face the threat of Dark Force's universal conquest. Later games would release these teams to their own stories and settings.
• Critical Existence Failure: As standard for an RPG.
• Curse That Cures: Kurogane is sworn to oppose Maerd, the Dream Demon King, but partway through the story is fatally wounded and seconds away from death. Maerd offers her a deal: swear herself to him and he will save her life. It becomes a pretty cool powerup that makes her even more combat-ready in the end game, but it's still to choose between dying on the spot or embracing the Dream Demon King that your lineage has been opposing for 48 generations.
• Cute and Psycho: Crown and Fool, two completely Ax-Crazy sadists with barely any loyalty to the player characters' team, only relishing the opportunity to kill and not caring if ally units get in the way of their area of effect attacks. They're also undeniably cute. This is even more apparent after their art upgrade in Giant Fist, where they cameo as trash talking dealers in the casino minigame.
• Cute Monster Girl: Deep Heaven is populated with lobster and octopus versions of these. The men though, not so cute. Ri=Ko is also a Cute Yokai Girl.
• Dark Is Evil: The Yami Clan. Dark Force, with his all-black design and Dark Force Army composed of pitch black assault ships and harnessing Dark Energy, is a subtle example.
• Demon Slaying: Kurogane is the 48th generation in a long line of demon slayers.
• Disposable Pilot: * The pilot of the airplane that carries the heroes early in the game, unceremoniously killed with a Spy Fly stinger through the face after getting the plane high enough for a mid-air battle.
• Distressed Damsel: Emerald ends up kidnapped. Rescuing her becomes one of the team's primary objectives.
• Distressed Dude: has two: Daitoku Igor who is discovered to be mind controlled and working for Dark Force, and Shimoun the Purple Hikari Warrior who went missing after their previous fight with the Yami Clan.
• Doomed Hometown: The game starts with the conquest of the Shakun Star, prompting Sharkungo to flee to the Earth.
• Downer Beginning: The Shakun Star is conquered before the game even begins. While Sharkungo hopes to prevent the invasion of Earth, the Dark Force Army arrives and fires its Dark Strike Cannons at major cities early in the game.
• Dragged Off to Hell: This is actually one of the good guys' plans for defeating Dark Force: to drag him into the Yami world, a demon dimension with alien physics that are incompatible with his mothership's teleporter technology, and collapse the portal behind him.
• Dual Boss: Sunny Day and Funny Face, though certain other bosses or Boss in Mook Clothing are fought as pairs.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Dark Force's intentions for the Earth.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita: Blackberry after her wardrobe upgrade.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: If alien tech is discovered and collected throughout the game, Platinum can finally gain a class upgrade and gain a much needed power boost in time for the final Dark Force mothership assault.
• Embarrassing First Name: Blackberry is not pleased at all that her old friends back in Ispares still remember her as Agnes.
• Evil Costume Switch: Cross Crow, as a part of his evil brainwashing, replaces his usual outfit with a stark black and white ensemble.
• Evil Is Visceral: The Bem cover anything they control with blood red veins and guts.
• Evil Laugh: Dark Force punctuates almost every appearance with his trademark laugh.
• Evil Overlord: Features the titular Dark Force; Yoveriade, leader of the Yami Clan, beings from a shadow dimension in opposition to the Hikari Warriors and Seven Colour Princess; and General Tarantula, the secretive leader of a criminal organization terrorizing the world with Half-Human Hybrids and Power Stone exploitation.
• Evil Sorceror: The Pyramid Witch Blackberry might be this. Zophy's rivalry with her is fed by the belief that her pursuit of power will lead to this inevitability.
• Faceless Goons: The footsoldiers of Tarantula and the Yami Clan all keep their faces covered by masks.
• Fan Disservice: Yukiko is usually the Stripperific Ms. Fanservice who dresses in Combat Stilettos and a bikini. It's sexy, but less sexy when Kurogane discovers her headless body leaving a blood smear on the wall. Unnerving, but lucky for Yukiko a minor setback with her vampiric healing.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: The one airplane pilot specifically. Spy Fly tails aren't just for show.
• Fish People: Nimon and most of the other Deep Heaven residents.
• Forced into Their Sunday Best: During the cruise ship leg of their journey, the hero party blends in by dressing in glamorous suits and dresses. Platinum takes extra sadistic pleasure in cleaning up Crown and Fool to the point where nobody recognizes them at first.
• Friendly Fireproof: Most of the player characters are kind enough to avoid hitting allies with their area of effect attacks. 'Most of them'. A few characters are sadistic enough or not attached enough for this to apply to them.
• From a Single Cell: The Half-Human Hybrid monsters developed by Tarantula only need a single-cell to be rebuilt.
• Galactic Conqueror: Series Big Bad Dark Force. In backstory, he has already conquered numerous planets. The Shakun Star falls during the course of Star Resistance, and his eyes are now set for the Earth.
• Game-Over Man: Getting a game over rewards you with a view of a massive Dark Force holding the Earth in his hand.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Most characters have at least basic sympathy. When their attacks have an area of effect, they won't harm friendly units. Characters like Crown and Fool either have less loyalty to the team or have a malicious streak, and don't care enough to avoid damaging teammates!
• Gasoline Dousing: Crown and Fool will throw gasoline onto the enemy and immolate them as part of their Kill It with Fire attacks.
• Glowing Gem: The ancient wizard Diamond Mine slumbers in a large diamond. When we see it pop up throughout the game, it shines with a rainbow light from the inside, denoting the phenomenal cosmic power entombed within.
• Gravity Is Purple: Befitting his ability to increase the gravity around him, Dark Force's all-black colour scheme is punctuated with purple.
• Gravity Master: Dark Force himself is able to increase the gravity around him, making it impossible to fight until a way can be found to counteract the gravity effect.
• Great Offscreen War: We don't get to see the actual invasion of the Shakun Star until the next game.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Happens now and again when allies to the player characters are officially joining a given fight. Notably, the entire Hikari Warriors join up with Ruritia and the rest of the team to attack the Yami Clan and Yoberiade herself, letting the player experience their strengths and unique powers for themselves.
• Guide Dang It!: The specific heroic acts you have to perform in each episode to improve your Hero Score, reach 100% completion, and unlock the True End. Thankfully, the aforementioned guide is included in the download.
• The Gunslinger: Most of Gecko Wolf's attacks are via shotgun.
• Half-Human Hybrid: On the friendly side, the non-Fish People residents of Deep Heaven. On the sinister side, half of Tarantula's operations is in creating these as their soldiers.
• Henshin Hero: Kojiro and Ryo transform into Guren Tiger and Gecko Wolf with the power of the Guren Stone and Gecko Stone.
• Hero of Another Story: The Galaxys team coordinates hero activities across America on top of partaking in defense themselves. They're even involved in the space skirmishes against the Dark Force fleet. None of which the player will see.
• He's Back!: Sharkungo is called away from the party for a while. When he returns, it's in triumph with a power boost, sprite upgrade and Badass Boast.
• Hide Your Children: for most of the game. The two times its averted, it's to rescue children from a very real risk of death.
• High-Altitude Battle: The one and only time they travel by plane. They become apprehensive about air travel for the rest of the game.
• Highly-Visible Ninja: Shura Shusha. Twin ninjas decked out in bright red.
• The High Queen: The Rainbow Princess.
• Holy Burns Evil: The reason that the Yami are keen to kill the Rainbow Princess.
• Hover Bot: The Clay Kid line of attack robots, resembling hovering, flying Jomon-era Dogu.
• Horns of Barbarism: Horns are surprisingly common headgear. Kojiro, when transformed into Guren Tiger, sports horns on his helmet reminiscent of a beetle, and Toyama, a professional wrestler, wears a cap with bull horns protruding from it. They are both physically-focused fighters who comfortably charge into the thick of combat to smash through enemies. Overlapping with Horns of Villainy, Crown and Fool wear horns on their hats, and they'd definitely be at home among the "burn the thathced roofs, slaughter the villagers" part of viking raids.
• Humanoid Abomination: Some of the enemies sent out by Tarantula are these.
• Hunter of His Own Kind: Gradius is a bem, a parasitic organism that assimilates humans to spread itself. He is also employed by SPICA to hunt down and exterminate the other bem.
• Hunter of Monsters: Characters affiliated with SPICA, PMEC and the Kinreikan do this for a living.
• Insectoid Aliens: The Spy Fly troop type under Mensouma's bioroid units. Bipedal dragonflies the size of an average human adult with a hardened, knife-sharp tail, they're one of the most common troop types for Dark Force's conquest of the universe.
• Intrepid Reporter: Rinko, a journalist for a magazine company who seeks out Kojiro. High profile martial artists and athletes have gone missing, so she tracks him down to see if his dojo breaking streak is related. When she finds out it's a criminal organization behind the kidnappings, she joins up with the player characters, following through all the danger to get her scoop.
• Jet Pack: Turns out not all the alien characters are gifted with superhuman flight. Daitoku Igor makes his escape when the robots he pilots get destroyed by flying off with a jetpack.
• Keystone Army: Dark Force isn't just the commander of his personal Alien Invasion force, he's also the source of dark energy that enhances and fuels his entire military. With his defeat, it all crumbles.
• Kill It with Fire: Some of Crown and Fool's more powerful attacks involve them dousing the enemy in gasoline and lighting them on fire.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: The recurring bosses always manage to escape the moment the momentum of battle turns against them. Usually this is when enough mooks have been defeated, especially the earlier fights where Co-Dragons Mensouma or Undata are impossible for the players to even scratch. Sometimes it's a Dual Boss, and the defeat of one will mean both run away. Even if you manage to beat them before their mooks or manage to beat both pairs of a Dual Boss in the same round, they'll slip through the player's clutches until the next time.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Part of the heroes' plan to defeat Dark Force, pulling him into the Yami world and having the Dark Force army and Yami clan weaken themselves on each other.
• Little Bit Beastly: Ri=Ko has fox ears and a tail, being a youkai. Shiira and Juno from Deep Heaven are this, but with octopus and lobster parts.
• Little Miss Snarker: Ri=Ko never misses an opportunity to snark. Comes with a retaliatory hit when tried on Fei though.
• Living MacGuffin: MacGuffin Super-Person. Emerald gets kidnapped for her immense magical power.
• Lovable Coward: Professor Ace always makes sure to disappear before the fighting starts.
• Magical Girl: Features Ruritia and the other Hikari Warriors, who fight against the Yami Clan in defense of the Rainbow Princess. While the Ensemble Cast means plenty of non-magical girl plots come in and out of focus, the Hikari and Yami conflict is a major part of the game and remains one of the major focuses up to the end.
• Magical Girl Warrior: The Hikari Warriors are capable melee combatants, especially the three who inherited magical swords.
• Marathon Level: The last few encounters in the Dark Force mothership'', dropping dozens of Mooks and supporting Elite Mooks at the start of the fight, and warping more in as the fight commences. Even the final boss fight is preceded by two whole rooms of enemies to drain your resources and possibly lose a few characters before even facing the Big Bad and his Co-Dragons!
• Masked Luchador: Sharkungo, the Star Lore Superstar who is always seen in his red mask with a star over the face.
• Mecha-Mooks: Robots under the control of Undata's mechanized troops.
• Mêlée à Trois: This becomes the heroes' plan to defeat Dark Force, to pull his mothership into the Yami world, where its alien physics disrupt his ship's teleportation technology. Then, while Dark Force and the Yami Clan waste troops on each other, the heroes launch a strike against both Yami and Dark Force factions.
• Mind-Control Device: Has two, a technological and a magical example. Daitoku Igor has been kidnapped by the Dark Force Army during the Shakun Star invasion before the game begins, and they have embedded a mind control device into his brain. As long as it is operational, he is completely loyal to the Dark Force Army and occasionally pilots mecha against the heroes. The Yami Clan also have a missing hero in their service: a cursed cross that when worn keeps Cross Crow docile and single-minded in their goal of killing the Rainbow Princess and to suppress his real identity, Shimoun.
• Monumental Battle: The fights in Washington D.C. take place around charming reproductions of local landmarks.
• Monster of the Week: Attack of Darkforce follows this format, with each stage presented as an episode with a new or recurring enemy to face.
• Monster/Slayer Romance: He's the Dream Demon King, a high ranking incubus. She's the 48th generation demon-hunting shinobi sworn to keep him sealed. She's bleeding out, he has the means to save her life. If only she'll say yes. The agreement has heavy marriage overtones, and her tone with him warms from antagonistic to amicable afterwards. In the credits montage they can be seen sharing afternoon tea with other heroes from the game.
• Multiple Endings: Based on your Hero Rank. Aim high for the True Ending.
• Natural Weapon: The parasitic Bem organisms only require their Panzer Arms to attack, hardening their hands into sharpened knife edges.
• Night of the Living Mooks: Master Wu attacks with Jiangshi.
• Non-Action Guy: Professor Ace reliably disappears whenever the fighting starts.
• Non-Human Sidekick: Three of the Hikari warriors have sentient blobs as sidekicks. Zophy is accompanied by King Leo as always.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Building up your Hero Score for 100% Completion tends to involve this for many episodes. For instance, it might require that Ruritia lay the final blow on Roxanne, or that Guren Tiger finishes off Polar Bear Corpse after he's slain Kojiro's mentor.
• Our Homunculi Are Different: Idea, created by the Dream Demon King Maerd to defend his mansion on Earth.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: The mer people of Deep Heaven fall under two varieties: adorable half-human hybrids of various sea life, or Fish People. The Half-Human Hybrid types also opt away from "top half, bottom half" style mermaids and more incorporate the animal into their design: the lobster merfolk is covered in red lobster shells akin to armour, and the octopus girl has the tentacles coming out of her back.
• Panacea: After an accident during his study of the Bem, SPICA's resident medical doctor Smoothy began to excrete a slime from his skin that heals wounds, cures sickness, and even restores damaged cells.
• Parasite Zombie: The bem are parasitic organisms from space who propagate by infesting and assimilating other lifeforms. While certain individuals like Franciska or Zweihander have individual personalities and agency, the standard bem soldiers are no better than mindless zombies. They infest humans, take them over, and throw themselves into combat.
• The Pawns Go First: Every boss battle operates like this, with the player party on one side, the boss character/s on another, and a field of enemies in between. The bosses, like all enemies, will start to engage when a player character is within a given range, but you'll have to fight your way to that point. Especially in the end game, it's not uncommon to see most of your transcendental power, HP, or overall combat effectiveness drained to precarious levels before you make it through the Mooks!
• Phantom Zone: The Yami world. Certain Yami clan combatants are even able to create a Yami Space, a localized area with the physics of the Yami world.
• Phlebotinum Rebel: This becomes the plot for the Tarantula organization's storyline.
• Posthumous Villain Victory: So you've defeated the Bem Colony, the amalgamation of all the remaining Bem, Mook and boss alike, and prevented an assimilating alien species from colonizing the Earth. Except, as they point out in their dying moments, the bem Gradius is still in the heroes' party, and they are disinclined to kill their friend. As Gradius does indeed survive the game, continuing his missions with SPICA, Gradius does end up fulfilling the hope of him becoming the seed of Bems' continued existence on the planet.
• Private Military Contractors: The SPICA mercenary company is a PMC tasked with studying and eradicating the Bem at the start of the game. Werner's command capabilities and resourceful contacts in high places makes them an essential support in fighting off the Alien Invasion.
• Pro Wrestling Is Real: Sharkungo is delighted when he discovers that Earth has professional wrestling. On his planet, they call it Star Lore and it is a Serious Business competitive sport with rich history.
• Psychic Children: Emerald of the PMEC team and Sonar of SPICA, who seems to share a similar origin as Emerald. Sonar is SPICA's resident telepath and uses her powers to detect biological signatures. Emerald is so powerful that she actually becomes targeted by the Dark Force Army, who are seeking out items of magical power as part of their invasion of the Earth.
• Recurring Boss: Several, given the rivalries various factions have with the player characters. Undata especially fought more than most other bosses.
• Religion of Evil: The Mad Scientist Michael uses the destruction of Tokyo as an excuse to make one of these. Major features being him as the central god and the use of his giant, faceless, laser-spewing man-made angels to kill nonbelievers.
• Rogue Drone: Gladius, fighting against the rest of the Bem, even when all other bem coalesce into the Bem Colony.
• Sapient Tank: The Plasma Boss Elite Mook.
• Secretly Dying: Ryo is revealed to be a defector from the Tarantula organization, and one of the earlier users of the power stones that give him his Henshin Hero status. Unfortunately, his Gecko Stone works by sapping the life of its user, and he's been using it long enough for his death to be soon approaching. He hides all this behind his smug smile and is sworn to help Kojiro take down Tarantula while there is still life in him.
• Shipless Faster-Than-Light Travel: In general FTL travel exists, as spacecraft can travel across the universe in the matter of hours or days instead of generation. But it still takes time. In Attack of Darkforce, Astral Gate is able to transport Sharkungo the distance from the Shakun Star to Earth almost instantly via the use of his Ghost Gate to warn the Earth of the coming Dark Force invasion before it arrives.
• Shoot the Medic First: The AI is smart enough to do this. Better not have Ri=Ko or Davie and Marie standing around unguarded.
• Single-Target Sexuality: The bem Francisca is obsessed with reclaiming the rogue bem Gradius to become her mate. Gradius, in turn, is solely infatuated with Flamberge, enough to offer his services in exertiminating the other Bem to secure her medical treatment.
• Skippable Boss: Sometimes it's possible to avoid needing to defeat a boss, usually by clearing out enough Mook minions, or killing one boss to make the other one flee. This can be a great way to break through a difficult situation, but you might miss out on that powerful weapon drop or the boss might've been necessary for Hero Rank.
• Snake Whip: Davie's weapon of choice is the Snake Whip, which transforms into a snake's head to bite the foe.
• Space Master: Astral Gate. Said to be everywhere at once, his specialty is portal creation and spatial control. His powers have been used beneficially like in the beginning of the game to help Sharkungo cross the distance between the Shakun Star and the Earth instantaneously.
• Star Power: Sharkungo features stars heavily in his aesthetic. His wrestling uniform consists of a crop top with a star emblazoned across his chest and across his mask. He's a Star Lore Superstar, the prince of the Shakun Star, and fights using Star Yui martial arts, which incorporates stellar imagery and naming such as in his Star Bit attack and Shooting Star final crash.
• The Strategist: Werner on Gerstenbüttel fulfills this role as commander of SPICA, and for the heroes when they combine forces. His tactical experience, intelligence and cool-headedness gives him a privileged position to see the bigger picture in a situation to direct the next course of action.
• Succubus in Love: Maerd, the Dream Demon King, is a high ranking incubus in love with the 48 generation Kurogane sworn to oppose him.
• Summon Magic: Blackberry's primary mode of attack is to summon various demons to attack for her.
• Sunglasses at Night: Ryo is never apart from his sunglasses, donning and doffing them to punctuate his dramatics. Not even night time disqualifies their use.
• Super Team: The game revolves around assembling one of these to defend against the Dark Force invasion of the Earth.
• Sword Beam: How Blue Hikari Warrior Ruritia attacks with her magical sword. She holds it aloft, charges power, then swings it level and fires a rainbow beam at her foes.
• Symbiotic Possession: The Bems' method of reproduction.
• Sympathy for the Devil: After tormenting the universe in all of this game and its prequel, finally defeating Dark Force projects a shared memory to everyone in the room, presenting Dark Force's backstory as an honourable defender of his home planet, who knew the dangers of dark energy but eventually becoming its host after a major defeat. It is this dark energy that used him to wreck cosmic destruction, now expelled after his boss fight. After, with his fleet crumbling around him, the player characters treat him like an injured old man to remove from the battlefield, rather than as a vanquished enemy.
• Timed Mission: Some fights have a turn limit as their victory condition, used when there is limited time to act.
• Token Heroic Orc: Gladius, a member of the human-assimilating Eldritch Abomination Bem species, who fight on the side of humanity against the Bem. His primary motivation is to secure medical treatment for Flamerge, who was only partially assimilated, but willingly helps the defense of the Earth even after the Bem threat is destroyed.
• The Tokyo Fireball: When the Dark Force army goes from covert activities on Earth to official invasion, they begin by filling the sky with space ships and striking major Earth cities with the Dark Strike Cannons. Tokyo, where the player characters were headed, becomes completely destroyed around the Shinjuku area and is reduced to ruins and craters. Other urban areas seen in game do not appear to be hit as badly.
• Tournament Arc: A brief one occurs for a festival in Iwate prefecture. Seeing the similarities between humans' professional wrestling and the Star Lore of his planet revitalizes Sharkungo, who is excited to participate. Sadly, it only goes a few rounds before being interrupted by the Monster of the Week.
• Transformation Sequence: Especially used by magical girl Luritia.
• The Unintelligible: Nimon, the token fish man from Deep Haven, who speaks entirely in variations of Puhuah!. Shiira follows along as the team's Translator Buddy.
• Uplifted Animal: King Leo, a 200 year old talking lion who owes his sentience to a blessing of the flame princess.
• Urban Ruins: After the Dark Strike Cannons pummel the Earth's major cities, any episode in Tokyo takes place in these.
• Warrior Prince: Sharkungo isn't just the Stare Lore champion, he's also Prince of the Shakun Star and doesn't hesitate to fight when the Dark Force army invades his planet, or to fly to the Earth to help their defense.
• Washington D.C. Invasion: As every major city becomes a target for Dark Force attacks. Galaxy Star gives the player characters the mission of defending Washington DC, so several fights against the invaders take place here.
• Vengeful Ghost: The phantoms, souls who died trying to invade Blackberry's pyramid and now forced to remain and defend it.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The final attack on the Dark Force army's mothership.
• Villain Protagonist: Crown and Fool. They're just here for the chance to kill and don't care who gets in the way of their axes.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Mensouma is impossible to damage in his first in-combat experience but Sharkungo repels him with... dish washing soap. This only works once though as Mensouma spends the rest of the game overcoming this weakness.
• Wild Man: Zophy is practically the poster child of the trope, a taciturn man raised in the wilderness who wanders into adventure with nothing more than a loincloth and some golden jewelry and a mountain of muscles.

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Thank you for playing this heroes story.
And don't forget.
You are the same "Victries Heroes" as them too.

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