Video Game / Gunfire Reborn

Gunfire Reborn is a Rogue Like First-Person Shooter with RPG Elements and Randomly Generated Loot developed by Duoyi (Hong Kong) Interactive Entertainment Limited which went into Steam Early Access on May 22, 2020 and fully released on November 18, 2021.

In a World of Funny Animals living in a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Imperial China, the Crown Prince sets off to investigate the demonic presence that he senses in the Longling Tomb.

The game features Co-Op Multiplayer for up to 4 players. Among the playable characters are:

• Crown Prince: An alchemist cat who specializes in elemental attacks. His smoke grenades and his Energy Orb which freezes enemies in place let him plague the battlefield with status effects.
• Ao Bai: An explosives expert dog who can dual-wield guns. He offers raw firepower to overcome enemies.
• Qing Yan: A martial artist swallow who prefers shotguns. His close-quarters expertise lets him dive in and out of combat with ease.
• Lei Luo: A sniper tiger born with electrical powers. His long-range abilities allow him to rain down death from afar.
• Tao: A Master Swordsman rabbit with More Dakka tendencies. Her Storm of Blades and Petal Power powers are augmented even further by unleashing a constant stream of bullets.
• Qian Sui: A snapping turtle who carries an Aspis and fights with flurries of punches. By building up speed, he's able to punch harder while tanking anything that comes his way.
• Li: Introduced in the "Visitors of Spirit Realm" DLC; A fox whose powers focus on explosive blasts of fire, being capable of dropping flaming meteors and powerful fireballs.
• Xing Zhe: Introduced in the "Visitors of Spirit Realm" DLC; A monkey who has the ability to temporarily boost the levels of his weapons as well as sending out a clone to clobber enemies with a staff.
• Nona: Introduced in the "Artisan and Magician" DLC; A red panda mechanic who fights alongside a mech known as Iron Wing piloted by a chicken that can switch between two modes.
• Zi Xiao: Introduced in the "Artisan and Magician" DLC; An owl whose power is based directly on the quality of his Occult Scrolls. He can summon magic cards to attack his enemies as well as to charge up the ability to drop stars on his foes.

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Gunfire Reborn provides examples of:

• 1-Up:
  • Players can self-revive once in a run by trading in Soul Essence.
  • The Triple Comeback scroll gives two extra lives that have half health.
• Action Bomb: The Bomber and Lantern Spirit enemies swarm the player in an attempt to blow themselves up with them.
• Alchemy Is Magic: Crown Prince's Energy Orb, which locks an enemy in place, is attributed to his alchemy skills. Alchemy is also responsible for powering the characters' energy shields.
• Anchored Attack Stance: When Iron Wing is set to Fire Mode, it acts as a Sentry Gun and can't move unless repositioned or set back to Strike Mode.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • During the DPS check on the final boss as he attempts his final charge-up, all players' weapons are granted double damage with unlimited ammo (both infinite reserves and magazines) and skills deal triple damage. However, if that still isn't enough to finish him off, they now will have to deal with him having guaranteed access to all his enhancements with the aggression of enraged mode, all the while crystal fragments rain down as debris onto the arena.
  • After defeating the final boss of an Act, the timer will pause to let you collect and check the loot. If you're speedrunning the stages to get the achievements, this allows you to catch your breath and better prepare yourself.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: The Penetration Bullet scroll causes Critical Hits on enemies with shields or armor to take 50% of the damage directly to their health bar.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Qing Yan's belief that his martial arts skills are stronger than alchemy explains why he uses armor instead of an energy shield.
• Astrologer: Zi Xiao's motif with his emphasis on reading the stars with his cards and luck manipulation.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Attacking an enemy's weakpoint triggers Critical Hits (not to be confused with Lucky Shots which are traditional Critical Hit attacks).
• Attack Reflector: With upgrades, Qian Sui's Tidal Aspis reflects blocked damage back to enemies.
• Attack the Mouth: The Ichthyosaurus Offspring's first weakpoint is its mouth, which is best struck during its flame breath attack that sweeps over the arena.
• Attack the Tail: The Ichthyosaurus Offspring's other weakpoint is its tail.
• Automatic Crossbows:
  • The Woodpecker is a crossbow that fires as fast as you can click, and Sting fires in three-arrow bursts.
  • The Crossbowman and its variants in the Longling Tomb can rapid fire their weapons at the player. Also applies to the Longbowman from the same level, as despite its name the weapon appears as an even larger crossbow.
• Bare-Bottomed Monkey: Curiously, the Snowy Mandrill enemy has a bare pink behind only when it's by itself and not being ridden by an Mutant Penguin as a Mandrill Cavalry.
• Barrier Warrior: Qian Sui's primary skill is forming a water barrier that completely protects his front side and upgrades his dash into a Foe-Tossing Charge, though he's restricted to only punching while it's active.
• Breath Weapon: The Fire Dragon weapon breathes out a steady stream of flames while the Justice weapon coughs out remote-detonated globs of fire. The Dual Fang weapon rapid fires flaming and corrosive darts.
• Boss Bonanza: Will occur before any act's stage boss if a player had purchased the Royal Guard Spiritual Blessing before entering that stage. Guaranteed to happen in every final room encounter (of acts 2-4) if Mysterious Jokul has been enabled.
• Came Back Strong: The player characters' Resurrective Immortality allows them to come back to life at Bao's inn following a failed run, where they can spend collected soul essence to unlock new perks.
• Canines Primary, Felines Secondary: Inverted. Crown Prince is the leading character while Ao Bai is the second character unlocked.
• Cast from Hit Points:
  • The Bloody Ammo scroll allows for continuous fire even after the magazine is spent by draining life instead.
  • The Capacity Overdraft scroll does the same for grenade usage.
• Cast from Money:
  • The Coin Shot scroll increases Lucky Shot chance in exchange for using 2 coins per hit, but refunds the amount if the hit is a Lucky Shot.
  • The removed Coins of Life scroll negated lethal damage for three seconds once at the expense of all coins.
• Chain Lethality Enabler: All the characters have some ascension to wipe mobs faster after a kill.
  • Crown Prince's Wildfire perk increases his fire rate for killing foes affected by an elemental status.
  • Ao Bai is able to kill foes or destroy environmental items to trigger Sustained Fire which boosts his damage and/or Adrenal Rush which grants damage reduction and health regen.
  • Qing Yan's Fully Equipped perk boosts his damage for a few seconds after using Leap and kills during this duration restore his armor along with reducing his Leap cooldown.
  • Lei Luo's Magical Supply perk allows his Fatal Current to keep refreshing with reduced duration as long as he keeps landing kill shots.
  • Tao's Ammo Extractor perk restores her ammo and adds a Blade Heart stack after killing foes marked by her grenade.
  • Qian Sui's Irrepressible Surge perk has two effects: geting a kill with Tidal Aspis active makes Hurtle have no cooldown for 2 seconds and getting a kill right after Tidal Aspis ends briefly refunds its cooldown.
• Chain Lightning: Lei Luo's grenades are electrical bolts that bounce to additional foes. With the level 3 Tesla Coil and Hyper Current ascensions, it'll bounce around six times and then strike the original target again.
• Chainsaw Good:
  • Wheel Saw is a combination of a shotgun with a buzzsaw.
  • Storm Chaser is a large buzzsaw that increases the player's movement speed while in-use and can even gain critical hit chance the longer movement is held, if the correct inscription shows up.
• Charged Attack:
  • The Rainbow Arch rifle's secondary fire lets it charge for one massive shot.
  • The Goshawk crossbow has a charging delay between firing and releasing the projectile.
  • The Dual Fang SMG needs to be revved up before it starts firing.
  • The Flowing Light sword has a charged Secondary Fire which uses ammo and strikes five times.
  • The Dragon Breath is a launcher that deals explosive damage via hitscan after a short charge-up. It also enters a charge stage after firing, but can be "perfect reloaded" by the player to immediately finish and grant the next shot piercing capabilities.
• Close-Range Combatant:
  • Qing Yan specializes in getting in close with his Diving Kick and then wreaking havoc with his assortment of sword and shotgun perks, all while staying alive by keeping his armor up thanks to his abilities.
  • Qian Sui is just as, if not more close-range focused, with his special skill being a shield that forces him into melee.
• Color-Coded Item Tiers:
  • Scrolls come in white (Normal), purple (Rare), yellow (Legendary), and red (Cursed).
  • Weapon inscriptions come in green (Normal), blue (Rare), orange (Legendary or Exclusive), and gray (inactive, Xing Zhe only).
• Cool Boat: The third boss, Yoruhime-Maru, is a battleship with loads of cannons bombarding the field. Its second phase reveals its face with just as much firepower.
• Cooldown Manipulation:
  • Qing Yan has the most cooldown reduction ascensions, typically by finishing off an enemy with Cleave after a Leap. His very first Talent refunds 50% of his Leap cooldown if he misses all valid targets with it, allowing it to be used for pure mobility when needed.
  • Several scrolls offer a way to reduce dashing and ability cooldowns like Magic Watch which gives a 33% chance to not trigger the cooldown or Flowing Time which reduces cooldowns by 1 second for hitting enemies.
• Covers Always Lie: Promotional images often depict the characters with a weapon that is contrary to their playstyle.
  • Crown Prince's splash art weapon is the Dragonchaser, which doesn't normally have elemental damage.
  • Qing Yan is seen with a Golden Bow despite his close-quarters style.
  • Lei Luo wields a Tiger Cannon when his playstyle revolves around hitting weakpoints.
  • Tao uses a Poisonous Ghost sword which is thematically appropriate since she's a Master Swordsman, though her skills lean towards high rate of fire weapons.
  • Qian Sui has an Icy Spear, which normally would make sense if used as a melee weapon. However in gameplay, it can only be thrown and does not need to be used in close quarters. In addition, Qian is seen mid-charge in Hurdle stance, disabling the use of his weapons outright.
• Critical Hit: The in-game term is Lucky Shot, which can be stacked above 100% for increased damage. Not to be confused with the game using Critical Hit as a term for attacking weakpoints.
• Critical Hit Class: Lei Luo specializes in critical damage as well as lightning damage. One of his unique skill tree upgrades gives him the chance to start off with a +2 sniper rifle with Rare Inscriptions to at least help him get the ball rolling.
• Critical Failure: Normally, Effective Split is a good scroll, granting you 2 random scrolls but those scrolls cannot be discarded. This means that while small, there's a non-zero chance that you can get scrolls that will permanently alter your playstyle, actively sabotage your run, or sometimes just straight up turn you into a true One-Hit-Point Wonder with no compensation.^note Flesh and Bones converts all shield into hitpoints, while providing HP regeneration. Paranormality sets your HP to 1 in exchange for doubling shields. Combined, it removes all shields and sets your HP to 1, and since all attacks against the player do at least 1 damage, you're basically going to get downed by anything.
• Critical Status Buff: The Persistent and Berserk Soul scrolls grant more damage resistance and Lucky Shot chance per bit of missing health. The Airbag scroll helps enable this by draining health while shields are full, but restoring health once the shields are broken.
• Cursed Item: When interacting with red chests, a randomly possible option in exchange for a large upgrade to one's defenses or their weapon is accepting a Cursed Scroll which will debuff the player in some way and cannot be manually dropped. However, some scrolls negate or even benefit from someone possessing them:
  • Evil-Banishing Talisman grants immunity to Cursed Scroll effects.
  • Evil-Devouring Sword grants bonus damage for every Cursed Scroll carried.
  • Good and Evil gives Lucky Shot chance for not having any cursed scrolls or bonus max shield/armor for each cursed scroll.
  • The Misfortunate Aura Set Bonus from possessing 3 cursed scrolls which causes any enemies near that player to deal 25% less damage and take 25% more from/to all sources. Thematically this is meant to be the player's bad luck rubbing off onto the enemies, but the debuff is completely unrelated to luck, due to the effect and range being exactly calculable.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff:
  • As detailed above, enemies affected by the Misfortune Aura take 25% additional damage.
  • Victims of the Shock status effect take 10% additional damage.
  • Most of the heroes have an ascension which increases the damage affected enemies take, often in the range of 20-60%:
    • Crown Prince has Hex Smoke for his grenades which also lowers the enemy damage output.
    • Tao has No Escape for her swords in addition to causing them to home in on the marked enemies.
    • Qing Yan has his Death Mark Cleave ascension which only applies to his own damage.
    • Qian Sui has his Unbearable Hurtle Aspis ascension which also lowers their damage output.
• Damage Over Time:
  • Burning is a standard DoT status effect that refreshes when reapplied.
  • Miasma is a stackable, spreading, Percent Damage Attack DoT that comes from combining the Shock and Decay status effects.
  • Bleeding is a stackable DoT that directly targets health and is unique to the Bloody Drill sniper rifle.
• Deadly Gas: Crown Prince tosses out smoke grenades which can be further buffed up through his ascensions. Even unupgraded, it serves as a reliable way to help clear trash mobs and inflict the Decay status effect.
• Deal with the Devil: The Devil's Covenant scroll reduces your max health by 50% in exchange for increasing further coin gain. In early access, the effect used to be taking current health and doubling copper at the expense of not being able to drop the scroll.
• Death Course: Some of the parkour Vaults involve running towards a stream of rolling boulders.
• Death Dealer: Zi Xiao's grenades are his star cards which he tosses at enemies.
• Death Is Cheap: An interesting Inversion; for the player, dying means having to start over from the beginning and losing any weapons and scrolls collected along the way. For the characters however, dying will simply have them come back to life at Bao's inn thanks to a magical amulet they're all wearing. What more, dying will also allow them to spend the soul essence they've gathered to unlock more perks, thus making them more powerful for subsequent runs.
• Death Is Not Permanent: The Jade Pendant that Uncle Bao gives to Crown Prince revives him upon death back at the inn through a process called Soul Resurrection. Presumably, every other playable character also owns a Jade Pendant of their own.
• Demolitions Expert: Ao Bai has a skill group specializing in explosives, particularly in explosion size and damage.
• Developer's Foresight: If you have the Bloody Ammo scroll, Star Devourer's unique magazine will turn blood red as it switches to using HP as ammunition.
• Diving Kick: Qing Yan's primary skill. It restores armor on hit and has a skill group dedicated to buffing it.
• Doppelgänger Attack:
  • Naturally, done by Xing Zhe, this time using locks of his hair.
  • Also done by any enhanced enemy with the "Cloning" prefix, unless they are the last enemy killed in the current room.
  • Dragon Qian can summon lighter-colored clones to misdirect and confuse players that attack it, while also deploying several proximity mines in the surrounding area. Players can pick up Chrono Freeze powerups to halt the real one for a few seconds.
  • Done by the Elite Thunderous Stalker once it takes enough damage, requiring players to find the real one (the clones have less total health). Killing either incorrect one repeats the cycle of it re-merging with only some damage taken, but splitting again fairly soon, significantly lengthening the fight if done repeatedly. Dealing damage to the correct image will prevent it from re-merging allowing players to focus the real one and kill it in one cycle.
  • Done twice if Mysterious Jokul has been enabled during the Pole Monarch final boss battle after each Soul Jar phase. Despite damage numbers appearing, they cannot be killed and will disappear on their own once he begins his final charge-up attack.
• Double Jump: Present exclusively in Spiritual Assault, unlocked by beating this mode once with any hero. It requires a 2 by 2 space to slot in.
• Dreadlock Warrior: Ao Bai's hairstyle and he's definitely a fighter.
• Easter Egg: There is a secret credits roll that can be found during gameplay. When fighting the Pole Monarch, avoid breaking either aura jar and allow him to fully charge off them. After defeating him, the right side of the boss platform can be walked through which allows players to drop onto a lower platform. Shoot the giant Spiritual Jade yourself causing a hit marker and the credits to roll (always in English regardless of set language).
• Early Game Hell: Being a roguelite, there are bound to be elements of this until the player gets more talents and scrolls unlocked. In general, new runs can feel this way before the player has a build to pursue and lacking vital scrolls that grant utility (such as movement speed) and bonuses to damage and defense. On later difficulties, this can be averted by taking the Overconsumption Spiritual Blessing, granting an immediate and large bonus to damage, Shields/HP, and dash cooldown. This bonus then gets reduced by each scroll the player holds.
• Elemental Powers: The elements in-game are Fire, Lightning, and Corrosion which deal increased damage to health, shields, and armor respectively. They can also inflict status effects to combine for deadly results.
  • Crown Prince specializes in using them, with a preference towards corrosion, Lei Luo holds a particular affinity for lightning, and Li wields mastery over fire. While Qian Sui manipulates water and it's a more traditional element in media, the game doesn't recognize it as a distinct element.
  • The Talisman weapon can freely swap between all three elements.
• Elite Mook: Elite versions of certain enemies can appear in vault areas and sometimes while clearing out a room. These monsters, while similar in archetype to the basic enemies upon which they are based, have entirely unique designs and attacks to each of them.
  • Taken to the extreme with the recent addition of the Mysterious Jokul dream modifier, which gives them random enhancement modifiers (e.g. Armored and Corrosive) similar to enhanced enemies found on higher difficulties, essentially creating ELITE Elites. There is an achievement for killing 30 of them.
• Emergency Weapon: The Foundry is a pistol with nine shots and infinite ammo which can be used to move faster or when conserving ammo for whatever reason. Its level scales up to the weakest gun carried.
• Equipment Upgrade: The Craftsman can level up weapons twice (thrice with the proper talent) per visit which gives a slight damage boost.
• Evil Former Friend: After the Pole Monarch is defeated, Uncle Bao speaks of how they fought on the same side once.
• Exact Words: The Blessing in Disguise scroll sets the options of Ascensions per goblet to 2 instead of 3, but allowing the player to choose both Ascensions, up to 3 times. This specifically SETS the amount, rather than reduces, meaning the corrupted goblets in Act 4 also have 2 Ascensions instead of only 1. This remains the case even after the player uses all 3 "select both" charges.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: While most weapons in the game have some sort of fancy name attributed to them, the Brick weapon is just what its name states: A brick that you throw.
• Expy:
  • Crown Prince is mechanically very similar to Maya of Borderlands 2, being an elemental specialist whose special ability involves holding an enemy in place (though rather than levitating them, he fires an orb that freezes them). Ao Bai meanwhile is reminiscent of Salvador from the same game due to his ability to wield two guns at once as well as his "Ember Eruption" Ascension being practically identical to Salvador's "Money Shot" (final bullet of a magazine deals bonus damage).
  • Qian Sui is similar to Athena as a defensive character who carries a shield, with his "Irrepressible Surge" being identical to "Many Must Fall" as a skill that allows him to effectively chain lunges as long as he gains kills.
  • Nona is effectively Gaige from 2, being a perky young girl in red pigtails who fights alongside a giant robot (the main difference is that Iron Wing is omnipresent and the skill merely lets you reposition it).
• Exploding Barrels: Scattered throughout most of the stages are red and green barrels, either of which will detonate upon any damage near enough to them, the latter of which leaving a corrosive area for a short time. Interestingly, these deal significantly more damage to enemies on all difficulty levels when compared to the mostly static health levels of players, thus make shooting a barrel near enough to catch friend and foe alike a viable form of combat and damage prevention.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Each Stage is based on its own unique version:
  • The Longling Tombs are inspired by ancient China, with enemies based on the famous terracotta warriors.
  • The Anxi Desert has elements of the Middle East and Mongolia, with turban-wearing bandits and various desert creatures like lizards and foxes.
  • The Duo Fjord is based on feudal Japan, with the population consisting of marine life dressed as samurais, Buddhist monks, and ninjas as well as various yokai.
  • Hyperborean Jokul is based on the Himalayas, with some Arctic & Antarctic elements like penguins & polar bears thrown in.
• Finishing Move:
  • Qing Yan's Easy Kill ascension lets his Cleave deal more damage the lower health the target is and scales up in damage upon successful executions. His unique Bladed Cleave spiritual blessing also enables the skill to instantly execute foes below 25% HP and bosses at 15%.
  • The Final Judgement scroll instantly kills enemies once they fall below a certain health threshold.
  • Xing Zhe has an Ascension that increases his damage towards targets the less remaining health that target has.
• Flamethrower Backfire: An achievement encourages killing Rogue Arsonists by shooting at the oil barrels strapped on their backs.
• Flying Saucer: An enemy type in the final stage that heals other enemies.
• Foe-Tossing Charge:
  • While Qian Sui has his Tidal Aspis active, his dash is upgraded to Hurtle which knocks back foes and deals damage.
  • The only move utilized by the Elite Beetle other than summoning smaller beetles to swarm the player(s). After a very clear telegraph, it rushes at moderate speed which knocks any hero caught a fair distance while dealing significant damage. A far quicker telegraphed charge (though much more audible) is done by Dark-faced Bandits ending in a Ground Punch that bypasses cover.
• Full Health Bonus: The Bluff scroll offers a +25% damage boost for being at full health.
• Furry Female Mane: Played straight in regards to Tao, who sports a head of long pink hair with pale orange highlights tied in a ponytail.
• Gatling Good:
  • The Big Hippo is a minigun with a big magazine and a bigger rate of fire.
  • The Octopus enemies carry a heavy machine gun to fire at the player with.
• Glass Cannon:
  • The Deadly Curse scroll grants +75% damage in exchange for -75% max hp when held.
  • The Dual-edge scroll increases damage taken and dealt for each enemy killed.
• Golem: Most of the enemies in the first level are terracotta soldiers. A gigantic one serves as an alternate level one boss.
• Go for the Eye:
  • The Elite Beetle's weakspots are its eyes.
  • Yoruhime-Maru's final form has its weakpoints located at its eyes.
• Ground Punch: Using Mecha Drop has Iron Wing jump to the designated area and slam down with both arms in an AoE Ground-Shattering Landing.
• Guide Dang It!: Weapons will slow you down differently depending on their type. Not immediately obvious nor important up until you're in a parkour vault and wondering why your dash-jumps can't reach a platform. The solution is to equip the Foundry for these occasions.
• Guns Akimbo:
  • Ao Bai's primary skill is to dual-wield guns which is just as deadly as it sounds in a game with Randomly Generated Loot.
  • The Talisman weapon is dual-wielded by default. As such, it disables Ao Bai's dual-wield skill when equipped.
• Hard Mode Perks:
  • Harder difficulties drop more Soul Essence and some items require playing on Elite difficulty to unlock.
  • Reincarnation mode allows players to buy Spiritual Blessings (which are bonus talents), enhanced scrolls, and enhanced weapons with their soul essence.
• Healing Checkpoint: After each boss is a checkpoint area that restores all health and secondary supplies and, in single player, allows the player to save and quit the session. In multiplayer, this area revives any currently dead allies. In either mode, if the difficulty is set to Reincarnation, players also have an opportunity to purchase one additional Spiritual Blessing with Soul Essence.
• Healing Shiv: Hitting Iron Wing with Nona's grenades will heal the mech.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Crown Prince's Acidic Explosion ascension makes enemies affected by his smoke grenade explode on death for even more area of effect power.
• High-Class Glass: Zi Xiao wears a monocle which gives the sophisticated effect as a diviner of the stars and being by far the most complicated character to play as.
• Homing Projectile:
  • Certain enemies have homing attacks, such as the Bandit Retainer in the desert or the dungeon boss Stone Guardian's homing boulder attack.
  • The Rainbow and Dragonchaser weapons can fire a mark that'll guide its subsequent shots. The Rainbow and Radioactive Gauntlet weapons also automatically target enemies near the aim cursor even without any mark, once the player is within each weapon's respective range.
  • An exclusive inscription on certain weapons can cause the weapon's shots to automatically home onto enemy weak points (with increased crit damage) for a duration after manually killing 5 enemies.
  • An exclusive inscription for the Strike Wing can make the arrows that split off from the initial hit curve and attempt to strike the same target, instead of continuing forward.
  • Tao's ascensions Blade of Bloom and No Escape both cause her summoned swords to home onto nearby enemies with different trigger conditions.
  • Some weapons can have an exclusive inscription that gives an 80% chance for a critical hit to spawn an elemental orb that (other than the fireball) drifts through the air towards nearby enemies applying damage and the respective status effect.
• Humanoid Female Animal: Tao, the sole female hero available to the base game, has a more humanoid facial structure than the rest of the cast, at least in her in-game model (her lips are less defined and her chin more rounded in promotional art). Averted with Li, a hero introduced alongside Xing Zhe in the DLC, as she looks just like the other Funny Animal protagonists.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Enemies can drop buns which will restore some health. The Gourmet scroll makes each bun heal full health.
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: Normal, Elite, Nightmare, and Reincarnation.
• Informed Species:
  • The Ichthyosaurus Offspring bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the real-life prehistoric creature◊ it's named after.
  • The Snowy Mandrill enemy encountered in the Hyperborean Jokul is pretty obviously supposed to be a hamadryas baboon and not a mandrill.
• Inventory Management Puzzle: The Spirit Concentrator that players fill up and take into battle exclusively in Spiritual Assault mode. It is a 5 by 5 grid with a 1 by 1 space removed from each corner, the contents of which can only be modified while in the pre-match lobby. As talent trees do not apply here, players instead slot in condensed versions of their talents, which take the form of shaped puzzle pieces that need to be manipulated to fit amidst each other. Multiple smaller talents can be taken at the same time, whereas far larger ones must be chosen with care.
• Invulnerable Attack: Qing Yan's Diving Kick grants him invincibility frames until the attack is done.
• It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: The weather during the tutorial and at the inn before starting an adventure.
• Laser Sight: Bandit Tacticians have one to warn the player that they're being sniped at.
• Last Chance Hit Point:
  • The Lifesaver scroll offers a one time use of this and gives 5 seconds of invulnerability to kill an enemy in order to restore 50% shields and health.
  • The Fake Death Spiritual Blessing gives the player 10 seconds of invulnerability upon taking lethal damage to score a kill to prevent going into bleedout state.
• Last Ditch Move: Once the Pole Monarch drops down to 5% HP, he starts charging up to his ultimate rage phase if he isn't taken down in time.
• Last Lousy Point: Demonlore is extremely likely to be the last gun unlocked since its unlock requirement involves killing 40 Arrogant Lobsters, a monster that scarcely spawns in the last stage of the third level, with direct Fire damage; this excludes Burning, elemental fusions, and Final Judgement's insta-kill.
• Lethal Joke Weapon: In a game loaded with near-mythical weaponry, one of the most powerful weapons is chucking a brick at an enemy's face. The Brick is a sniper-class weapon that powers itself up when it lands a crit, and with its buff active has the highest base crit multiplier in the game at six times normal damage, where most snipers have four.
• Level-Locked Loot: The other characters besides Crown Prince and a few items are locked away until the player gains enough talent levels.
• Life Drain:
  • Nihilation Monks use this against players by teleporting in and drain life in a large area of effect that quickly ramps up in damage.
  • Gluttony has its Devour attack, which siphons life from players to heal itself if they do not take cover from it.
  • Mechanically speaking, Qing Yan lands hits on the enemy in order to restore his armor.
• Lightning Bruiser: Despite being a turtle, Qian Sui is actually fairly agile since he can gain a speed boost simply by deploying his shield thus allowing him to both deal and soak damage while devastating foes. Speed buffs also increase his skill damage, thus encouraging players to make him as fast as possible.
  • Qing Yan's primary skill grants him lots of mobility, especially with some cooldown-reducing Ascensions, often having him quickly jump around the battlefield throughout the fight.
• Limited Loadout: Players can only carry two guns and the Foundry.
• Literal Wild Card: Cursed scrolls act as wild cards for Zi Xiao's Astrohouse mechanic, automatically fulfilling the highest rank Astrohouse hand available. If he gets a wild Astrohouse, it is considered the same as a legendary Astrohouse.
• Living Statue: The terracotta warriors from level one, and the Golem boss from that same level.
• Living Weapon: The Fire Dragon, Justice, and Dual Fang weapons are lizards that spit fire at the enemy. The Hell shotgun meanwhile glances around when idle and reloads by chomping on shells.
• Long-Range Fighter: Lei Luo's perks are oriented towards Sniper Rifles and his lightning abilities have a decent range along with bouncing capabilities. He also has the least health, but fastest base movement speed.
• Loophole Abuse: Cursed Scrolls cannot normally be discarded. Peculiar chests sometimes offer a reward in exchange for a scroll. When offering a scroll, nothing stops you from offering up a cursed scroll.
• Luck Manipulation Mechanic:
  • Some red chests will offer to completely reroll a weapon's Inscriptions.
  • The Craftsman can indefinitely reroll a weapon's Gemini Inscription as long as the player keeps paying.
  • The New Look talent allows for refreshing the Peddler's inventory once per encounter.
  • The first Spiritual Blessing choice in Reincarnation difficulty can be repeatedly rerolled for some soul essence.
  • Some Spiritual Blessings allow for further luck manipulation:
    • Supreme Craftsman lets you reroll a weapon's inscription 3 times at each Craftsman's.
    • Ultimate Gambler allows for rerolling the ascension choices once per goblet.
  • Given that Zi Xiao's playstyle is built around randomness, part of his Talents and Ascensions allow you to manipulate the outcome of his own "slot machine", called the "Astroaspects". Said Astroaspects are influenced by the scrolls you have, hence he can reroll each scroll once, as long as he has resets lefts, to get rarer ones and make his Primary Skill more powerful.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Physical shields are employed by a few different enemy types such as the buckler-wielding terracotta Crossbowmen and Catfish Grunts, with much larger tower shields held by Rogue Henchmen and Horseheads. Most hero skills and weapons with piercing properties will bypass them.
• Macrogame:
  • After every run, the player is taken to the talent screen to spend their gathered Soul Essence on permanent upgrades.
  • With the Transcendent Arsenal dream modifier active, weapons can be stored with the arsenal guard and swapped out on different runs.
• Macross Missile Massacre: For Nona, the ascensions focusing on her missiles and Iron Wing - Fire Mode will have them launching a constant barrage of missiles at the enemy while simultaneously restoring ammo for each other.
• Mage Marksman: Crown Prince fits the archetype with his elemental focus, Alchemy Is Magic nature, and gun usage.
• Magikarp Power: Lei Luo has one of the rougher starts in a run, especially if he doesn't have a proper long-ranged weapon. Provided that he last long enough to get both a solid sniper rifle and some good skills he can provide devastating firepower from a safe distance.
• Making a Splash: Qian Sui is capable of water manipulation with enough skill that his Tidal Aspis makes him impervious to any frontal damage and his dash gets upgraded to deal damage and knock aside foes. In the character select screen, his idle animation involves making his drink fly around.
• Master Swordsman: Tao has enough control over her swords to use them as Flying Weapons and launch them into a Storm of Blades.
• Metal Slime: One Vault involves dealing as much damage as possible to Dragon Qian to loot it before it runs off.
• Mighty Glacier: Ao Bai's skill tree doesn't offer any mobility, but he overwhelms enemies through a combination of a Healing Factor, More Dakka, and Stuff Blowing Up.
• Miko: While not explicitly referred to as such, Li's outfit emulates the standard Miko getup and her Spiritual Flame has her making Hand Seals akin to how Miko in fiction often perform spells.
• Mini-Mecha: Nona has Iron Wing, her AI-controlled mech companion which can swap between being a frontline striker or a rooted auto-turret.
• Monster Compendium: There's a logbook in the main menu that gives Flavor Text about the various foes encountered.
• Money for Nothing: The Resurrection difficulties were added to avert this by offering ways to spend your excess Soul Essence at the point that you've most likely maxed out every character's skill tree.
• Monkey King Lite: Xing Zhe's appearance, his ability to create clones from his hair, and the staff his clones attack enemies with, are all lifted directly from Sun Wukong proper. His pickups for his secondary skill are even miniature versions of Wukong's golden ring headband.
• Mook Medic: The fourth stage has Flying Saucers that grant enemies shields until you take it out. Since they're flying in the air this makes them fairly tough if you don't have a sufficiently long-ranged weapon.
• More Dakka:
  • Encouraged with Ao Bai's various Guns Akimbo ascensions which when maxed out include regenerating ammo, reducing dual-wielding duration instead of dying when taking fatal damage, and increasing dual-wielding duration by consuming ammo.
  • Tao's ascensions are a cycle of shooting more bullets to launch more swords which buff shooting more bullets.
• Mundane Made Awesome: The Brick weapon, classified as a sniper, is quite literally just a throwable brick, but getting a Critical Hit with it spawns a pickup that, if collected, will increase its crit multipler to 6.0x — the highest base crit in the game. The effect can be prolonged as well by scoring successive critical hits and getting the pickup again and again, up to 20 times at once, essentially guaranteeing a critical damage buff perpetually so long as you don't miss too much.
• Necessary Drawback:
  • Several of the powerful, game-changing scrolls come with an equally negative drawback to balance it out like the Hawkeye and Merciless Strike scrolls dealing far more damage when attacking weakpoints, but much less on normal hits. Similarly Ostrich Rider increases movement speed by 50%, but increases the dash cooldown by 300%. Enhanced versions of scrolls often remove the drawbacks of their normal counterparts, as befitting of their enhanced nature.
  • Activating the Interdependent Fortunes dream modifier will grant the option of up to 4 additional scrolls at the start of each Act from Anxi Desert onward (the choices being divided between each player, with the host getting 2 choices in a 3-player team), but also give all enemies an equivalent boost from the chosen scrolls. Any player can forfeit a given selection with ESC however.
• No Body Left Behind: The enemies disintegrate upon defeat except for the Pole Monarch.
• No Name Given: Among all the heroes, Crown Prince is the only one who doesn't seem to have an actual name and is only referred to by his title. Even in the original Chinese his "name" is simply the Chinese translation of the same title rather than a conventional name — the only other possibility is that his name is indeed "Crown Prince".
• Obvious Rule Patch: Due to Spiritual Assault's nature of sending enemies in endless hordes, several heroes and occult scrolls are changed in this mode to be hard capped, such as Elemental Relic stopping at 50 enemies and Easy Kill capping at 3000 damage stacks. Certain occult scrolls are straight up removed due to being either outright useless, e.g. Shrine of Recovery and Old Battle Boots, or too cumbersome to consistently get full benefit from, such as Lone Ranger.
• Percent Damage Attack:
  • The Miasma status effect deals stacking damage based off of the enemy's max HP, divided by the number of players on the team.
  • The Giant Slayer scroll gives a chance to deal 15% of the enemy's current health on hit (Max 2K per hit).
  • The Poisonous Ghost's alternate fire (built up by dealing repeated normal slashes first) unleashes a piercing slash that deals a quarter of a normal enemy's max HP, half that to elites, or 5% to bosses. Unlike the above scroll, there is no maximum on the damage that can be dealt, meaning literal millions of damage can be dealt with one piercing slash on the highest difficulty bosses.
  • Inverted with the Spirit Feline scroll which doubles damage taken, but makes it so that it never exceeds 14% of total health. Combine it with a source of sustain and it's one of the best defensive scrolls in-game.
• Petal Power: Tao's grenade is an explosion of petals that causes marked enemies to take damage again if they're hit 12 times before the effect ends and can be augmented further with Ascensions.
• Pinball Projectile: The Prism throwing knife, capable of rapidly bouncing off the environment as well as piercing through enemies. Smaller enclosed spaces can make this kunai extremely deadly; gets to be even crazier with its exclusive inscriptions such as bonus Lucky Shot per ricochet and splitting into additional darts after first ricochet, compounding even further if two or more are rolled at once.
• Play Every Day: Downplayed. There are daily challenges, but they don't offer any reward other than a small amount of Soul Essence (100 for the first day's completion, 30 on subsequent same-day completions) and two achievements. Currently they're mainly there for the fun of trying out different modifiers.
• Power at a Price: Peculiar chests can offer a few benefits in exchange for things like health, scrolls, or forcing a Cursed Scroll on the player.
• Power Palms:
  • The Laser Gloves, Thunderclap Gloves, and Radioactive Gauntlet shoot out fire, lightning, and corrosive beams respectively.
  • Lu Wu equips one before facing off against the heroes. He uses it to fire laser beams and smack them around with it.
• Power Tattoo: Lei Luo was born with thunder tatoos which allow him to manipulate electricity.
• Practical Taunt: When Iron Wing is repositioned in Strike mode, the enemies in a 10m radius are taunted for 3 seconds, up to 7.5 seconds with the level 3 Wood Armor ascension.
• Protection Mission: The Guard Seal Vault level tasks the player with protecting a large cube against waves of enemies. Failure to do so results in a Total Party Wipe if the players were standing close enough to it.
• Quick Melee: Instead of grenades, Qing Yan has a quick swipe of his wing and Qian Sui punches, though they still need grenade ammo to melee.
• Quicksand Sucks: One of the Wind God's moves is creating a bunch of quicksand pits that will trap the player which can only be escaped by dashing. Fortunately this allows the player to destroy the small tornadoes sent after them, and ultimately defeat him.
• Random Number God: Genre aside, Lei Luo has an extra layer of luck to him since he starts off runs by picking one of three bonus talents presented to him out of the 12 potential choices.
• Ray Gun: The Thunder Storm gun is stylized as one. It fires a piercing lightning ray and its Secondary Fire shoots a slow-moving ball that disables enemy shields and can be shot at to detonate.
• Recursive Ammo: The Strike Wing bow's arrows split into three after hitting a target.
• Regenerating Health: Normally Averted, but some things provide the effect:
  • The Flesh and Bones scroll converts shields/armor into health and restores 4% max hp per second.
  • One of Ao Bai's hero talents lets him passively regenerate health while dual-wielding, while the One Dog Army Spiritual Blessing allows him to do it even when he's not.
  • A recent update altered lifesteal scrolls such as Fire Enthusiast and Sanguine Relic to grant periodic percentage health regeneration instead of percentage lifesteal, making them more similar to other regeneration scrolls (but still requiring the player to damage something first) such as Elemental Bestowment (heal upon triggering elemental effect), Shrine of Recovery (out of combat healing), or Safety Measures (dash to heal recent damage taken).
  • Core Member, a Spiritual Link Set Bonus, grants this to all players when activated by any player during a run, in addition to an increase to their damage and movement speed.
• Regenerating Shield, Static Health: Shields will restore themselves after a few seconds of not getting shot.
  • Crown Prince has an ascension to speed up the process and ensure that it can't be interrupted.
  • Tao's tier 5 Talent allows her to immediately start recharging her shield after killing any enemy and also preventing it from being interrupted for the next 3 seconds even if struck.
  • Averted with Qing Yan who doesn't have shields and has armor instead, which has to be restored manually.
• Rewarding Vandalism:
  • The Hidden Treasure scroll lets breakable objects have a chance of dropping coins.
  • In lieu of enemies, Qing Yan and Li can use their hero skill on nearby pots and crates to refill their respective resource. Qing Yan can use his Leap primary skill to regain some Armor and Li can use her Meteor secondary skill to refill some Energy.
  • For some scrolls such as Deft Hands, their effects can be triggered upon breaking objects as well, allowing one to start its infinite ammo effect before attacking, or even switching back and forth between attacking and breaking a single object to keep the effect going against a particularly tough enemy.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: If his name is any indication, Crown Prince, the starter hero, is of royal blood. He also ventured out on his own to investigate on the demonic aura and, even though he's not much of a frontline fighter compared to other heroes, his skillset makes him a *very* powerful ally if played right.
• Sand Worm: Man-sized ones show up as a common foe in the second level and act like fast-firing turrets. The boss of the area, Ichthyosaurus Offspring, is a huge scaled up one.
• Sea Serpents: Abyssal Serpent is the third stage alternate boss. There are four serpent heads which share the same health bar and fight by lunging, spitting, and swinging their neck across the arena.
• Secret Level: Vaults are areas hidden inside literal cracks in the wall and, as the game helpfully points out, are the primary source of occult scrolls.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: Nona's Suicide Device ascension will allow Iron Wing to explode when defeated or redeployed on a cooldown of preparing a backup mecha between detonations.
• Set Bonus:
  • Spiritual Links added with the Mysterious Dream modifiers allows various bonuses to activate in a run once a certain combination of weapon type, Ascension, and/or scrolls are acquired.
  • After the appropriate talent is purchased, weapons that spawn after the second boss will have a Gemini Inscription, as well as weapons found in the second stage that are taken to the Craftsman to have an inscription etched into them. Holding guns with matching Gemini Inscriptions will trigger the effects which include:
    • Sharing elemental types.
    • Combined magazine size, with damage stacks gained per second of firing, with reloading halving the stack.
    • Magazine size set to 1 while granting stackable (up to 3 times) percentage damage after reloading as well as either halved reload time or +70% extra Lucky Shot chance, depending on which weapon has greater base damage over the other.
    • Combined crit multiplier.
    • Planting spores on enemy equal to on-hit projectiles of offhand weapon, then detonate spores when count reaches 30.
• Shifting Sand Land: The second level is a desert filled with bandit enemies.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The final stage takes place in the snowy mountains.
• Shoot the Bullet: Several slow moving enemy attacks, such as the Kappa's energy balls, can be shot down with your own weapons. Area-of-effect weapons in particular are effective at nullifying such attacks. For example, when fighting the Stone Guardian boss as Crown Prince, he can often toss one of his Smoke Grenades in front of him and simply back up when the boss spawns his homing boulders. Most of them will explode when flying near his toxic trap.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Qing Yan has a few perks oriented towards shotgun usage such as increased damage up close or free shots after reloading.
• Shout-Out: Many of the weapons are inspired by those from other games:
  • The Thunder Storm and Porcupine have alternate fires that make them play similarly to Unreal Tournament's Shock Rifle and Flak Cannon respectively. The Deafening mortar also shares more than a passing resemblance to the flak cannon with a primary fire that deals lots of small hits in close range, and a long distance exploding shell secondary fire.
  • The Concealed Ammo can be thrown as an explosive like Tediore weapons from Borderlands. The Scorching Round is a Torgue pistol, the Scalpel is functionally a Hyperion SMG while the Sunder is effectively a watered-down version of a Double Penetrating Unkempt Harold.
  • The Golden Bow, Bone Launcher, Rainbow, and Talisman play similarly to the weapons used by Hanzo, Zarya, Symmetra and Zenyatta from Overwatch. The Aura of Venom's alt-fire causes it to resemble McCree's revolver mechanically.
  • A lot of weapons function similarly to Warframe, which in turn had a lot of Unreal Tournament inspirations:
    • The Thunderclap Gloves' chain-lightning beam functions similar to the Amprex.
    • The Radioactive Gauntlet works similar to Atomos, an auto-aiming chain beam glove.
    • The Wild Hunt brings Warframe's Tigris to mind, as both are double-barrel shotguns with duplex triggers (firing once when the button is pressed and again when it is let go).
    • The Illusion's ability to gain projectiles and fire rate as the trigger is held down is remarkably similar to the Kohm, a Warframe full-auto shotgun that also benefits from pinning the trigger and ramping up the DPS.
    • The Pupil is mechanically similar to the Drakgoon - a shotgun that can be charged up to reduce spread.
    • The Pupil shotgun charge mechanic is also reminiscent of the Geth Plasma Shotgun from Mass Effect 3. While it does not consume more ammo when charged, damage is increased, and an exclusive inscription further buffs the weapon when fully charged.
    • The Dragonchaser is similar to the Buzlok with its ability to apply a mark to a specific spot on the level or onto an enemy, causing all fired bullets to strongly home towards the spot. Even its moderate firerate is similar to the other weapon.
• Sidetrack Bonus: Parkour Vaults have a second hidden chest in them. The ones involving aerial dashes will start a two minute timer to get to them.
• Skill Scores and Perks: The perks are called Ascensions; at the end of each stage (and as a potential drop from elite enemies) is a goblet which offers a choice from three random ascensions to pick.
• Slow Laser: Enemy lasers travel as a projectile to give the player a chance to dodge. Averted by the glove weapons which are Hitscan.
• Spin Attack:
  • Done by the Elite Spearman dealing rapid damage to any hero nearby, in addition to the one he has chosen to chase during this move.
  • The Icy Spear weapon spins in place after being thrown, dealing damage to enemies near it before either being pulled back by the hero's choosing or by timing out and eventually disappearing.
• The Smurfette Principle: Tao was the only playable female character in the game until the first DLC expansion introduced Li.
• Sniper Rifle: The Piercing Flame weapon is one with innate flame and piercing attributes. The Double Caliber on the other hand fires two bullets which return to the clip if both hit a weak spot. Many of the bow type weapons are also classified as snipers. So is the Brick.
• Star Power: Zi Xiao is able to call down stars with his primary skill and has divination as his theme.
• Stationary Boss:
  • Golem, the alternate boss of the Longling Tomb, hangs over the back edge of the boss stage as he attacks. That said, his stone pillars can be used quite effectively for taking cover.
  • Yoruhime-Maru stays in place after it sails up to the dock and fights via pelting the arena with cannonfire.
  • Gluttony, the exclusive boss unique to the Spiritual Assault game mode has consumed so much corruption that he has become immobile and attacks from the edge of the arena.
• Stat Sticks:
  • For Gemini combos that don't involve swapping weapons, the reserve weapon's elemental chance, crit multiplier, or magazine size is the only thing that matters for boosting the primary weapon.
  • With Qian Sui's 5th hero talent, Hurtle scales off his equipped weapon's level which makes it beneficial to keep upgrading even if the player has no intention to stop punching.
  • For Xing Zhe, his currently held weapon (its type) influences the clones of his hero ability, granting such effects as explosive damage, bonus crit or Lucky shot chance, or extra strikes. This is in addition to its other stats such as its Gemini effect, its level (base damage applied as bonus to the attack), any lucky shot or crit bonuses, and element type (if it has one).
• Status Effects:
  • Elemental damage has a chance to cause status effects which can be further combined into fusion effects.
    • Burning causes a standard Damage Over Time, based on the damage of the triggering shot.
    • Shock is a Damage-Increasing Debuff.
    • Decay slows the target down to half movement speed.
    • Manipulation (Burning + Shock) is a charm effect that causes the foe to target its allies.
    • Explosion (Burning + Decay) causes an explosion every time it's applied, dealing Splash Damage based on the damage of the triggering shock.
    • Miasma (Shock + Decay) is a Percent Damage Attack that stacks and spreads as Damage Over Time.
  • Crown Prince's Energy Orb inflicts Stop on affected targets.
  • Bleeding is a Damage Over Time that stacks and directly targets health. It's unique to the Bloody Drill sniper rifle. Enemies with this prefix can also afflict players with Bleed, but cannot directly target health until first depleting their shield/armor.
• Stock Ninja Weaponry: The Prism, Arc Light, and Glimmering weapons are throwing kunai with elemental properties.
• Storm of Blades: Tao's Primary Skill is launching a series of swords, with more blades ready per 15 ammo spent. At base level it can send a max of 18 blades, but with the right maxed out upgrades, an upward of 76 swords can be out at once.^{Some math} Luminous Heart raises the Blade Heart stack cap to 9. Sword Shadow makes Swords Out fire 6 blades per Blade Heart stack. 54 so far, but Blade of Bloom also causes Fatal Bloom to summon (2.5 x Blade Heart stacks) or 22 blades when marking a foe for 76 total. Not factored in is Empathy with Sword which gives a 10% chance to summon a sword when dealing weapon damage.
• Stuff Blowing Up:
  • Inflicting a foe with Burning and Decay will cause an explosion around them every time the status is applied.
  • Enhanced enemies with the Immortal prefix have a delayed death that ends in a moderately-damaging explosion once they expire. The "Possession" Demonic Aura random event makes all slain enemies explode upon death, though with reduced damage.
  • Crown Prince's Acidic Explosion ascension primes affected enemies to explode once slain.
  • Weapons with matching spore Gemini inscriptions will set up an explosive spore on the enemy to be detonated once limit has been exceeded.
  • Some of Ao Bai's ascensions focus on his ability to blow stuff up.
• Summon to Hand: After being thrown, the Icy Spears can be recalled from where they're spinning back to the player to hit the enemy again.
• Sword Beam: The Poisonous Ghost and Fire Tower swords can send out an energy beam as their Secondary Fire.
• Synchronization:
  • With the Electric Circuit ascension, targets hit by Lei Luo's Chain Lightning share a percentage of damage taken together.
  • With the Flower Chain ascension, a few of the targets hit by Tao's Petal Power take damage together.
• This Is a Drill: The Bloody Drill sniper rifle fires drills that inflict the unique Bleeding status; Bleeding is stackable and a Damage Over Time that directly targets health.
• Throwing Your Gun at the Enemy: The Concealed Ammo SMG can be thrown at enemies at which point it'll promptly explode. An exclusive inscription for it increases the number of explosions based on the ammo in its current magazine.
• Timed Mission: Endless Journey allows players to loop over to the beginning stage while keeping everything from their current run, but with new strong limitations during the looped run^note Players are limited to 60 scrolls, Golden Goblets only offer one choice AND must also overwrite an old chosen Ascension, vaults are not offered, NPCs get subsequently rarer, and enemies drop fewer coins while gaining percentage damage reduction per additional level completed. The main limitation is a 10 minute timer that will close off the next act and force them to finish their run once the next Act boss is defeated (counting as a victory), with each level clear granting a small time bonus.
• Time Stands Still: Crown Prince's Energy Orb causes enemies hit by it to freeze in place for two seconds. Further levels in the Enhancement Lasts ascension will boost the time up to a maximum of eight seconds.
• True Final Boss: The Pole Monarch is the boss of the Hyperborean Jokul, the optional fourth stage that can only be accessed if you defeated Yoruhime-Maru at least once.
• Turns Red: After the Final Boss is brought down to 1 HP, he'll proceed to charge himself up while bringing up a shield. If players cannot bring down his shield in time he'll heal up and resume the fight with some potent buffs.
• Unblockable Attack: Weapons with piercing attributes will bypass any physical shields that enemies carry.
• Universal Ammunition: Ammo is split into Normal, Large, and Special meaning that a shotgun, bow, crossbow, sniper rifle, and rocket launcher can all share the same ammo source.
• Unlockable Content: Several weapons and occult scrolls are locked behind conditions like defeat a certain enemy X times or beating the game multiple times.
• Unlockable Difficulty Levels: The other difficulties are locked until Normal difficulty is beaten.
• Video Game Dashing: All characters have a basic dash with a two second cooldown. Several scrolls offer benefits for dashing with things like instantly reloading or restoring some shield on use.
• Visible Invisibility: Bandit Hermits can turn invisible, but have outlines that are still visible.
• Weapon Specialization: Each character has a different set of ascensions to encourage their playstyle:
  • Crown Prince prefers using elemental weapons in conjunction with his gas grenades to rack up status effects. His Energy Blade ascension meanwhile encourages a oneshot build due to amping up the damage on the next shot and dealing splash damage around the target.
  • Ao Bai has a penchant for explosives, but his Guns Akimbo perks also encourage More Dakka and weapons with the spore Gemini inscription Set Bonus. Alternatively, being able to use two weapons at once allows him to proc Fusion effects and the Spores Gemini fairly easily.
  • Qing Yan likes shotguns since his kit is about diving into close quarters. Otherwise, he can choose to focus on his Cleaves or melee weapons.
  • Lei Luo is geared towards using sniper rifles to shoot weakpoints with one of his hero talents even causing Elites and Bosses to drop a sniper rifle as additional loot. With the right ascensions, he can also be built to unleash a constant storm of lightning bolts while wielding an explosive weapon and take his area-of-effect to a new level.
  • Tao revolves around bullet-spewing weapons to summon more blades for buffs and raw damage.
  • Qian Sui largely favors melee weapons since his combat style focuses on closing in on the enemy though his ascensions don't limit him to any weapon type as long as he's up close. His moveset also encourages building for speed since his damage scales off how fast he's moving.
  • Nona's weapon-based ascensions benefit the most with pistols like rewarding critical hits or smaller magazine sizes, with one in particular granting a speed buff (and a damage buff that scales with speed buffs) while wielding a pistol. Notably all throwing weapons besides the Brick count as pistols, meaning Nona has a deceptively high amount of weapons to pick from.
• Yellow Lightning, Blue Lightning: Lightning is marked with the color blue.
• You All Meet in an Inn: The main menu and lobby are set in Uncle Bao's inn where the heroes gather before setting off.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Beating the game in Early Access has the Crown Prince mention that he still feels demonic aura in the area.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Defeated enemies drop Soul Essence which the protagonists consume upon death to level up before reviving back at the inn.
• You Will Not Evade Me: The White Shark enemies attack by throwing their chain at the player character to reel them in and root them for the followup smack.