A 1996
Strategy RPG for the
SNES, in
Isometric Projection. Quite under appreciated. Developed by Neverland and published by
Taito, the same company that made the better known
Lufia series. The game even contains many elements from that series, including the "Priphea Flowers" theme. It features art and character designs by Yasuhiro Nightow of
Trigun,
Gungrave, and
Blood Blockade Battlefront fame.
This game provides examples of:
- Amnesiac Dissonance: When this whole mess started Your Amnesiac Hero Player Character was on the villains side, you learn this piecemeal and the villain will lampshade it eventually.
- Combination Attack: Several of Dorothy's attacks use Pygma, while several of Lenardo's use Gulliver. However, gameplay wise, they aren't much like combination attacks, as they're fully under the control of individual playable characters, as Lenardo's abilities depend merely on Gulliver's presence, but still use his location's range, and Pygma only shows up when Dorothy calls an attack.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Leon, most notably, but also a few other characters, such as Dariem. Plus a few debatable cases.
- Distracted by My Own Sexy: Examining any water surface with Myra will yield her admiring her own reflection. At a specific point, Dorothy will outright spray water all over to make her stop.
- Dual Wielding: Leon uses two swords.
- Elemental Powers: Fire, water, wind, and earth. Each of your characters has one of these as a primary element: Myra and Leon are wind, Lenardo is water, Star is earth, and Dorothy is fire. You're mostly playinf the "Light" heroes there are actually four different elemental groups, the others are: the Priestesses (neutral), the Sekrilata (neutral), and the Generals ("Dark" heroes). There is an overlap too so for example one character is a Sekrilata-Priestess-General.
- Eternal Recurrence: Life arises, grows, civilizations rise, prove to be imperfect then Oriales tries to wipe it out and Selphie tries to protect it. To date she never won even once. The gameworld is positively littered with artifacts of previous cycles.
- "Fantastic Voyage" Plot: There are not one but two short quests involving this. In one of them you'll get to see one of the party members as a fetus.
- Guide Dang It!: There is almost no in-game explanation and tutorial for the game mechanics, even the newest FAQ on Game Faqs is from 2008. If you intend to play this, even with the fan translation, be prepared for some hard core Trial-and-Error Gameplay on your firs run until you figure out what you're doing.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Selphie first takes an attack meant for Leon, THEN uses the rest of her power, to protect the party from falling meteors.
- Improbable Weapon User: Dorothy generally uses a pogo stick, but one of her best weapons is New Bible. Dr. Leonardo's weapons are various powders and tools.
- Inventory Management Puzzle: Every character has 8 inventory slots and this includes their equipment (up to 4-5 pieces of gear) and every one of them can only use their own, there are "item box"es that give you additional 8 for 1 but are rare, items don't stack... Good luck surviving.
- Lost Lenore: Elena for Dr. Leonardo and Limitz, Marion for Star.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The party will systematically lose the Cosmic Key Stones they possess, special mention goes to Dr. Leonardo who trades his for his true love's suspended animation.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted (at least in the translation, not sure about original version), as there are two characters named Emilina.
- Power Copying: How Star learns his skills. You have to kill certain monsters using Star's normal attack, and Star will gain the ability to transform into said monster, in order to use his attack.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Pope Oriales tries to kill Leon. Until Selphie pushes Leon out of the way.
- My Future Self and Me: Star invokes this trope, to give his younger self some words of encouragement.
- Stone Wall: Gulliver, can't attack but is invincible, can fly, and serves to block enemies movements. The exact usefulness of this, depends on the terrain, though.
- Summon Magic: You gain the ability to summon the Sekrilata in late game.
- Talking to Themself: One of the characters does this every so often. There's a reason for it, naturally.
- Time-Limit Boss: Not just bosses — all battles have a turn limit, and if you take too long, it's instant game over (or very rarely instant win; read the mission description carefully). Luckily there are items that can increase the limit.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: This game features a whole lot of Time Travel and when the party does things it's almost exclusively played as You Already Changed the Past ... then one of the villains changes it significantly for the characters. Limitz saves Elena at the cost of his own life and before she can meet Dr. Leonardo. Somehow the world doesn't implode.
- Toilet Humour: Dorothy can learn the incredibly overpowered debuff spell Poison Drop. The animation for it involves her pet dragon pooping on the enemies.
- Weapon Specialization: Myra's weapon of choice are whips.
- Wolverine Claws: Star's weapon.
