Video Game / Iconoclasts

"This is bigger than you."

Iconoclasts is a Metroidvania Platform Game developed by Joakim "konjak" Sandberg and published by Bifrost Entertainment, formerly a retraux Cave Story-influenced project called Ivory Springs. It was in development for seven years before finally releasing in January of 2018.

Robin is a mechanic (complete with massive wrench) living in a world that's slowly withering away. Her society relies on Ivory, an energy source controlled by a powerful organization called One Concern, which is the center of a religion represented by a figure known as Mother. Robin is not permitted to do mechanical work due to their regulations, but she does it anyway. When she's found out and becomes a sinner in the eyes of the world, she embarks on an adventure with other outcasts in order to stop Mother and One Concern once and for all, and find out what's really happening to the planet.

The game's release trailer is here. Links to buy the game, as well as downloads for the 2012 alpha and the Ivory Springs alpha, can be found on Konjak's website.

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Iconoclasts contains examples of the following tropes:

• Action Girl: Robin and Mina both travel through the base of One Concern operatives, fight Super Soldiers, and manage to topple an entire corrupt regime and save the world at the same time, then they go on to defeat the entity revered as a god by the entire world on top of that.
• Advancing Boss of Doom:
  • The Omega Controller, first as a Rise to the Challenge scenario on an elevator platform and then as a horizontal chase where it takes the form of a buzzsaw. In both cases, Robin has to repel the boss with bombs.
  • Fitzroy slowly crawls towards Robin for his first two phases, which only makes it harder to keep dodging attacks from the golem face made of Ivory rising out of his back, which represents his memory of Leticia as she once was, and of her after she lost her face to Transcendence, respectively.
• A God Am I: Being the physical representative of the Starworm, Mother is prone to this. Royal also shows signs of this, since he's supposed to be Mother's successor. A bit ironic, considering the "god" they supposedly draw their power and influence from isn't really a god at all.
• Alien Blood: Two separate examples. Transcended individuals bleed white, as they've become totally infused with Ivory. Then, the final boss may have blue feathers, but its blood is green.
• All for Nothing: All the pain and sacrifice to get a late-game goal accomplished ends up not mattering. Royal gets to the moon with Robin to commune with the Starworm, but Royal can't even get the thing to respond to him until Royal uses his powers to cause the Starworm to take some damage. This then allowed Robin to defeat Him, but Royal could have done that on the planet's surface, too. All it really did was get Royal killed. In a larger sense, all the panic and strife over the Starworm's return ends up not mattering either, since Robin still kicks its ass and uses the Ivory in its system to grow a massive amount of trees, stopping the quakes and saving the world.
• All There in the Manual: The official names of two late-game bosses (the cat Mother rides on is named Oedipuss after her pet cat, and Black's One-Winged Angel form is the Ivory Beast) can only be found on the game's soundtrack.
• All the Worlds Are a Stage:
  • The Impact Zone consists of several rooms themed after previous locations, each containing enemies from previous areas infested with the blue eyes.
  • The Omega Controller constantly causes the terrain to cycle through the different area textures as you ascend the elevator shaft.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Barely a few hours pass between Robin, Mina and Royal getting to Isilugar, and the attack on it by the One Concern. It gets moved to prevent them from sending back-up down there, and the whole battle works out well for the Isi, but disastrous for the One Concern, since the only person to die in the battle is Agent White, earlier considered to be nigh-immortal. They also lose ten soldiers prisoner, while Isi only lose Samba, who is eventually recovered by Mina anyway.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: Early in the game, Elro ends up with an eye patch over his left eye. Also, one cutscene ends with Elro getting his right arm ripped off by Agent Black. His in-game sprites change to reflect both of these things, but turning in each direction changes the position of the injuries.
• Ancient Astronauts: It's heavily implied that all of the humans are descendants of colonists who migrated from Earth to an alien planet. The Isi found and recovered an ancient colony ship which they revere as a sacred artifact, and their city has paintings of known human landmarks such as the Taj Mahal. The Concern similarly have a colony ship in their possession which they use for research purposes. Hidden alien text hints that the planet that the game takes place on was originally a fuel depot for birdlike starship pilots, and at least one of them has visited the planet before.
• And I Must Scream: It's implied that being possessed by the blue eye creatures feels like this. It's further implied that if Starworm was alive, and not just a mech, then this is what it felt for untold years as the pilot controlled it through the blue eyes. If so, then the pilot being killed by the Starworm "malfunctioning" and attacking him instead of you might not have been a malfunction at all, but the Starworm regaining control over its body and spending its last moments before death getting revenge on the asshole who enslaved it to use as a spaceship.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different:
  • One part of Ferrier Shockwood is played entirely as Mina after she gets separated from Robin and Elro, complete with her own boss fight against a Controller. She gets another unique segment during One Concern East, which ends with the Mendeleev fight.
  • Elro gets a segment during One Concern East as well, though most of it is him limping through the hallway with only a few enemies present. He fights Lawrence at the end of it.
• Antepiece: When Robin arrives at City One, she's stopped by a gatekeeper, and the only way to get past him is to use the Usurper's charge shot, which pulls him off the high platform and onto the ground. This weakness is shared with the boss fought a few minutes after this scene.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Robin's Ground Pound has a minor homing effect when used above an enemy, so you'll still land the hit if you attempt a Goomba Stomp but your aim is slightly off.
  • During boss fights, incidental dialogue said by the NPC heroes will give hints as to how to defeat them. For instance, in the Climax Boss fight in City One, Mina will shout "come down here, coward!" at the boss, hinting that you need to use the Usurper's charge shot to bring them to the ground. These hints will also be highlighted in red text for you to notice exactly what you need to do.
  • In Challenge Mode, Lawrence takes six hits to defeat instead of twelve. Very convenient for a fight where one mistake means repeating the entire fight, and you're playing as Elro, who is extremely slow but quite strong.
  • The first boss fight with Agent Black features an attack that Robin cannot dodge no matter what, and reduces her HP to critical levels. As compensation, weak enemies will always spawn right after Agent Black uses this move, and these enemies will always drop health pick-ups.
  • A late-game boss fight features Robin trapped in a room which fills with poison gas. Taking damage from this gas is unavoidable, with Robin's health bar essentially acting as a time limit for the fight. As compensation, her health drains much slower than when she runs out of oxygen underwater.
  • When loading a save from the main menu, you can change which difficulty you're playing on. So if you find one particular section too difficult, you can always lower the difficulty and raise it back up once you're ready.
  • There are a few One-Time Dungeon levels in the game. But there are never any treasure chests, sidequests, or key items that can be missed in these areas so that nothing is Permanently Missable Content.
• Anti-Magic:
  • The Isi's seeds have extremely volatile reactions when exposed to Ivory, making them grow instantaneously; this makes them an excellent tool for wrecking Concern technology, which is reliant on Ivory. Royal also notes that even though his powers allow him to control plants enough to sprout them in the middle of the desert at will, he is completely unable to affect the plants grown from these seeds because Royal's powers work by manipulating the Ivory in an object, but the Isi plants don't have any Ivory in them because they're from Earth. They also work disturbingly well on humans who have been injected with Ivory, being used to take out Agent White and Mother (Agent Black resists their effects until the blue eyes mutate her). When Robin jams a seed into the Starworm, the resulting explosion causes a wave of nature to overtake the whole planet.
  • Detritus is a pinkish-purple powder that is produced whenever an object is drained of its Ivory. It is very much anti-Ivory, negating the Healing Factor of ivory-infused individuals and, in the case of Royal, completely shutting down his powers. Black kills Royal in a pit of Detritus at the end of One Concern West (she planned to kill Chrome there, but he had other plans), though he revives himself shortly after his body leaves the room. Elro's work with the ChemiCo Contra led to him inventing a serum that instantly removes Ivory from matter and turns it into Detritus, which is one of the few things that can kill Transcended humans.
• Applied Phlebotinum: Ivory is used to power all technology and the Concern's stranglehold on it is the basis for their control of all society besides the pirates/Isi, who get it from underwater Ivory pustules. It can function as a battery for a home, a component to be used in Item Crafting, a source of immortality and superpowers for those with the necessary constitution, and ultimately gasoline for some alien bird's space truck. This ubiquity is eventually explained, as everything on the planet and its two moons, aside from things which came from the human colonists' ships and the Blue Eyes, is partially composed of Ivory. All of the unique square plants and native life have Ivory as their essence, and revert to a pink-purple dust when drained of it. Ivory-infused individuals' immortality and superpowers are actually an ability to drain Ivory from their surroundings or manipulate it.
• Arc Words: "This is bigger than you." Said to both the heroes and the villains, it's frequently used to talk down to someone or to try and convince them to back off. It never works. This ties into the game's themes of not conforming to what's expected of you and dealing with grief.
• Artificial Limbs: At first, they appear as simply a necessary attribute of an agent. Agent White has cybernetic eyes that allow him to shoot Eye Beams, Agent Chrome has cybernetic legs, and Agent Black is revealed to have cybernetic arms. Eventually, Royal reveals that any individual who survives Transcendence but doesn't perfectly merge with the Ivory like Mother and Royal did will end up with a certain body part consumed by the Ivory. Said body part is then replaced by an implant that gives said individual their powers, while itself functioning only due to the Ivory in the rest of the person's body. As such, General Chrome has cybernetic legs and Agent Grey had cybernetic neck or ears. Ash, who complained about gut pains, might have lost an internal organ to gain invisibility.
• Ass Shove: The boss fight against Kibuka requires you to position it so Royal can flip it over, then throw a bomb into its rear exhaust.
• Attack Its Weak Point: The majority of the bosses possess weak points of some kind that need to be hit in order to defeat them. Only the comparatively rare human bosses are the exception.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Many of the tweaks end up being this, mainly because a tweak "breaks" when Robin takes damage. In addition, Robin only has three tweak slots for the entire game, so powerful combat Tweaks (such as faster charge shot renewal, a wall-piercing Usurper Shot, and massive Roller Bomb explosions) are going to be set aside for the ones that let you move faster, solve puzzles quicker, and take less damage.
  • The Roller Bomb's charge shot is a powerful missile with the highest range of any attacks Robin can use. Unfortunately, in addition to the long charge and cooldown time it has, it can only fire straight forward and needs a split second to ready itself before it blasts off; if the missile hits anything in the short range it flies before igniting, the attack is wasted. You'll probably use the missile for puzzle-solving and an incidental enemy or two, since it's all but useless against most bosses^note That being said, occasionally there is a situation where focusing on dodging far from the boss and periodically sending a high-damage missile onto them is a viable option - one such happens to be against difficult Superboss.
• Badass Boast:
  • Several human antagonists get to say them:
    Agent Black: When you know no-one has got your back, you learn to prepare to fight in any situation. Let us grieve existence, together.
    Mother: I am the mother of this earth. You are challenging the very ground you walk on.
  • Mina gives Mother's boast an Ironic Echo the first time Mother is knocked down during the battle, allowing Mina to apply her seeds:
    Mina: Have a fistful of MY earth!
  • Amusingly, the first such boast is said by Benley, a minor character at Settlement 17 pub who could obviously never live up to it:
    Barten: That moon has been coming apart for decades now. The more it crumbles, the more Penance seems to happen.
    Turkosa: It's because of sin, isn't it? Do you think pieces of the moon could fall on us too?
    Barten: Benley wouldn't allow it.
    Benley: I would punch it back into orbit with my own fist, girl!
• Bad Guy Bar: The Community Center (more or less a pub, even though alcohol is in short supply) in Settlement 17 is used as a hangout place for the One Concern while they're keeping tabs on the town, much to Black's annoyance.
• Bait-and-Switch: Ash mentions that his daughter volunteered for Transcendence in order to become like him. The player will most likely assume he is referring to Black, the only female agent encountered up to this point, but the credits imply that he was actually referring to Nobel. This was foreshadowed by Nobel's superpower being invisibility, like Ash.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: We finally find out what the One Concern "prototype" does when Starworm uses the real thing on Robin, and she has to face off against shadow creatures who represent the people she failed, while the backgrounds portray said failure. The first creature carries Elro's broken sword, and has his ruined house standing in a sunflower field ("Sunflower" being Elro's nickname for Robin), with the statues of his wife and daughter in the background. Mina's shadow has the graves of her Isi ancestors filling the background, Robin presumably thinking they would've lived if she could have stopped the One Concern sooner. The triangle-headed apparition representing Royal has the broken moon where he died. Agent Black has a literal black void, both it and her figure being a skeleton referring to her death at Robin's hands. The first three cannot be damaged conventionally and must be bypassed by turning on switches, which represents Robin's unwillingness to hurt others and desire to “fix” things. All but Black that is. "She" must either be shot again, or allowed to crawl past and explode on her own.
• Battle in the Rain: The battle by the rocket against Agent Black is fought during a torrential downpour.
• Big Bad: Mother is the leader of the One Concern who is responsible for the despotic tyranny it is subjecting the world to. After her death, Emmet Darland takes over and tries to stop the heroes from reaching the moon; once they do, the Starworm becomes the final threat who tries to destroy the world for its Ivory.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Implied, de-facto example; while Mother is the official leader of the One Concern, the Suits, particularly Emmet Darland, seem to be at least sharing power with her, and are often the ones directly overseeing her projects. Once Mother dies, Emmet and the Suits take over what remains of the One Concern, intending to carry out her plan to flee to the moon.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • In Darland Ascent, Robin and Royal are cornered by the Omega Controller and about to be shredded, when suddenly Captain Myron busts through the ceiling on his ship. When the Omega Controller rams it, the ship breaks its armor.
    Myron: I'll have my audience with you, marauder!
  • The game heavily implies that Teegan showed up and pushed the other button to launch the rocket after Elro refused to.
• Big "SHUT UP!": Black delivers a "SHUT... UP!" in large, vibrating text towards a calm-as-always Chrome in One Concern West, shortly before beating the shit out of him with some Extreme Mêlée Revenge until Chrome bleeds out onto the floor. Since he's Transcended, Chrome gets better shortly thereafter.
• Bittersweet Ending: On the one hand, the One Concern theocracy falls, its remaining forces are led by clueless Tolo, and they no longer have the power to harass Isi or intimidate peaceful people with the Penance. Robin stops Armageddon from occurring by destroying the Starworm and its pilot to prevent him from siphoning off the remaining Ivory keeping the planet together, while nature repairs the planet after she (and potentially Mina) sticks an Isi seed into Starworm's Ivory-infused corpse. It's also implied ChemiCo Contra are making headway into alternative energy research, like the naturally-occurring energy of the Ferrier Shockwood, to ensure the planet won't come so close to the brink again. Finally, Mina returns home to her girlfriend Samba, and the planet being safe now ensures that Mina won't have to run off anymore to leave the people she loves worrying about her. On the other hand, the demise of One Concern's transcended leaders like Mother, Chrome and Royal results in dozens of rank-and-file soldiers dying in the civil war, while most pupils at the Tower were killed by Mother's Corners, and the remainder appear unable to adapt to the independent life. The cycle of revenge between Agent Black and Elro ends with the former dying a horrible death, her remains burnt up in the atmosphere as B-17 took off, while the latter is alive, but crippled and embittered. Elro in turn ends up finally conceding the point that Robin is more than capable on her own, and he won't tell Robin what to do anymore. But had he just listened from the beginning instead of being a Knight Templar Big Brother, things probably wouldn't have turned out so badly for him.
• Blackout Basement: The Dark Cave area of Darland Ascent is appropriately badly lit. Robin's wrench acts as a small flashlight when charged, and she can activate generators to turn on lampposts.
• Blessed with Suck:
  • Along with the usual superpowers and immortality, Transcending caused Agent Black to suffer constant, unrelenting headaches which she describes as feeling like knives cutting her, meaning they are most likely cluster headaches, known for their extreme intensity. She has been like this for almost 200 years, so it's no wonder she's such a grouch all the time, and why her sanity could take such an abrupt nosedive as it did.
  • Agents in general are stuck with this, as the very act of Transcending has caused them to lose limbs or organs which require prosthetic replacement. Chronic pain also seems to be a common symptom as well, since Ash also mentions suffering heavy pains in his gut.
• Bloodless Carnage: None of the dead bodies seen in the game, whether it's One Concern soldiers killed in their civil war or the Tower's pupils killed by Mother's Corners ever display blood. The only exceptions are the Alien Blood of the Transcended individuals, which is white like Ivory, and the green blood of the final boss, an actual alien.
  • However, a scene when Agent Black subverts this when she rips off Elro’s arm, as it has a couple of blood splatters. Elro spends the rest of the game walking around with a bandaged but still oozing stump where his arm used to be, his med-tape and shirt thoroughly saturated with his own blood.
• Body Horror:
  • The entire process of Transcending, which involves injecting Ivory directly into a person's body. A few people will succeed and survive the process with superpowers, though some will lose body parts in the process. And the many that fail basically melt into puddles of white goo. Even if it does work out, those who Transcend are plagued by sharp chronic pains, and Transcended people who live long enough will find themselves consumed by the Ivory; Father is essentially comatose, Fitzroy turned into a mindless being made of dripping Ivory, while Leticia kept her sanity but is no longer recognizably human.
  • Agent Black takes the cake when the blue eyes try to possess her while Isi Seeds sprout from her body. The end result is a giant monstrosity with Ivory trees sprouting all over its body and clusters of eyes hidden inside said trees.
  • The horrors of chemistry are demonstrated when Elro develops a serum that forcibly ejects all Ivory from matter, causing the object to turn into Detritus dust. Its real purpose is to be used on Transcended humans, who are practically filled with Ivory. The result? The affected person's skin turns purple as they start deforming and boiling alive, until they explode into a fine purple mist.
• Bowdlerise: In the original release of the game (as well as Ivory Springs and the 2012 demo), while escaping from Settlement 17's jail through the rafters, the noise Robin makes is covered up by One Concern troopers cracking lewd "if you know what I mean" jokes and laughing. Later patches changed these into simpler puns. Konjak's official reason for changing the jokes is that they didn't fit well with the tone the game has early on before hitting Cerebus Syndrome. It helps that it keeps the troopers more sympathetic, since the original jokes painted them as Politically Incorrect Villains, which doesn't align with how sympathetically they're treated in the rest of the game.
• Boom, Headshot!: Lawrence executes a hapless One Concern Attacker in this manner, before turning around to face Elro.
• Boring, but Practical: The Iron Heart tweak. All it does is absorbing the damage from a single hit before breaking, but the fact that it's possible to stack three of them at a time and landing shots on an enemy helps regenerate a broken tweak means that they're incredibly useful to have equipped for most boss battles. Plus, it's the only way to avoid being a One-Hit-Point Wonder in Challenge Mode.
• Boss-Altering Consequence: Depending on your Relationship Values with the other characters, the first phase of the final boss changes. If you do everything right, the first shadow becomes less aggressive wheras the second and third shadows will be stunned which is signified by sunflowers particles appearing over their bodies. During the final two phases, Mina will help you fight against the Starworm and later its pilot.
• Boss Arena Recovery: Many bosses will summon some type of minion or use a destroyable projectile attack that has a chance to drop health. The first fight against Agent Black is a particularly egregious example: Three times during the fight she uses an unavoidable attack that always brings you down to one hit away from death, and then immediately summons a bunch of weak Controllers that are guaranteed to drop health pickups while she just slowly walks around doing the "Well! What is it?" gesture and not attacking, giving you plenty of time to kill the Controllers and get your health meter up to 75% full.
• Boss Rush: An alternate game mode once the main story is beaten. Light Rush and Heavy Rush constitute about 45% of the game's bosses each, Full Rush uses the bosses from both Light and Heavy Rush, and Lethal Rush reuses the bosses from Heavy Rush, but removes the Regenerating Tweaks that all the other boss rushes have.
• Bragging Rights Reward:
  • For the purposes of a single playthrough, the Featherweight tweak gives Robin a Double Jump. But since it's granted after defeating one of the Superbosses, the effect is basically useless, since all that's left to do is to either fight the Final Boss or go after a few missed treasure chests, to which a double jump is only tangenitally useful. It can still be carried over to a New Game Plus, however.
  • Defeating the game's final Superboss gets you a tweak, but it's a Joke Item called Roulette that's meant to make things more challenging by adding random status effects to Robin.
• Butt-Monkey: The Silver Watchman just can't catch a break. He gets his ass kicked by you three times, his fourth attempt to kill you accidentally saves your life instead, then he gets possessed by the blue eyes (and gets his ass kicked by you again in his possessed state), and finally he is taken out by Royal of all people, who drops a boulder on top of him, trapping him underwater where his teleportation powers don't work, drowning him.
• Cardboard Prison: The trio of Robin, Mina, and Elro find themselves caught by the Concern and locked in The Tower’s jail cells at one point. Mina and Elro are locked up tight, but Robin’s cell includes a floor plate that she can stomp through to easily crawl out of her cell. Admittedly, not many people can Ground Pound as well as Robin.
• Central Theme:
  • Grief. What's the best way to deal with terrible things happening to you and those you care about? And though no life can be without some sort of tragedy, how much suffering is "the right amount" of it?
  • Conformity. What's the proper way to try and change a corrupt system: try to change it from within, or try to tear the whole thing down and start over? Also, does rebellion against any such system inherently make someone a bad person?
• Cerebus Syndrome: The game starts out as a wacky adventure as Robin struggles against cartoonish, Large Ham villains, but as the game goes on, the villains get far less cartoonish as we see just how depraved and despotic the One Concern is. By the end, a large number of people have died in a bloody civil war, and the final battle is against an outright Eldritch Abomination that threatens to consume the entire world.
• Chekhov's Hobby: Elro's job is a chemist. He's apparently good enough to create a serum that will forcibly remove all Ivory from any object, which makes it very effective at killing Ivory-infused people such as agents.
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: The only doctor in the game has an incurable disease.
• Colorful Theme Naming: All the One Concern members have codenames based off of shades of grey. Agents White, Black, and Grey, and General Chrome, Ash, and The Silver Watchman.
• Concussion Frags: The grenades thrown by One Concern Attackers have practically no range at all. On the bright side, they can at least bounce between floor and ceiling a few times, making them difficult to avoid.
• Crapsaccharine World:
  • The world under One Concern seems to be prosperous and happy, with green pastures and the like, especially the paradise of City One, which is white, beautiful, and peaceful. However, this is only if you are in the Concern's favor- those who are branded heretics are hunted down and killed via Penance, in which you are trapped in your home and it is brought down upon you. Agents of the Concern have it little better, as they are forced into the horrific Transendence experiments where their blood is replaced with Ivory; many do not even survive, and those who do are tormented by their bodies. And lastly, the world is falling apart mainly because of One Concern's Ivory mining, and rather than stop, the elites opt to build a rocket, escape, and leave everyone else to die.
  • Downplayed with Isilugar. At first glance, it seems like a perfectly pleasant place to live in. In a lot of ways, it is, specially if you compare it with life in the Settlements where even minor, unintended crimes can result in Penance. Life in Isilugar is more relaxed and free, with the Isi religion being all about love and reproduction. That last part has a catch, however. Turns out the Isi religion is not perfect, either. Arranged marriages are common, and procreation is seen as a vital responsibility of every adult, which means that people who are unable or unwilling to reproduce, like Doctor Gustavo, who doesn't want to pass on his genetic disease, are seen as outcasts, through no fault of their own. That also means that Mina and Samba's relationship is probably also frowned upon, which might explain why it's played with such ambiguity throughout the game.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Quite a few of them.
  • Agent White: Killed by an Isi seed growing into an Ivory tree, ripping through their back.
  • Mother of the One Concern: Same as above, except with their entire body exploding into an Ivory tree, with the rest of them turning into bubbling Ivory foam.
  • Agent Grey and General Chrome: Gets boiled alive and explodes into Detritus dust thanks to Elro's anti-Ivory serum.
  • Agent Black: Transforms into a monster made up of Ivory trees and the "blue eye" substance, suffers from an acute case of spontaneous cranial combustion, then has their body burned up in the planet's atmosphere.
  • The pilot of the Starworm: Gets their head crushed in by the Starworm.
• Cruelty Is the Only Option: Late in the game, leaving Royal on the moon to die can't be avoided. You have to place him near the only device that will open the last door, while he's so overcome with grief upon the revelation that his journey was All for Nothing that he won't even try to save himself. The device which opens the door is literally hanging by a thread, and it's too far away to get through the door with both Royal and Robin. Try as you might, the only way to progress forward is to go through with it.
• Cycle of Revenge: The whole thing starts when Robin and Elro's father's death is presumably caused by the Concern, causing Elro to kill Agent Grey in revenge, causing Agent Black to pursue Robin and Elro in response, starting Robin's quest to rescue Elro and take down the One Concern for good.
• Cypher Language: The manual gives a translation for some of the glyphs that show up in the Impact Zone and other areas.
• Dark Reprise: The final boss theme, "Castle Doctrine", happens to be a remixed version of the second boss theme, "Machines".
• Death of a Child: On several occasions.
  • First one is when Robin's niece, Ella, is killed along with her mother through "Penance" when Robin is caught fixing Ivory tech at Elro's house.
  • Then, it happens when officials at The Tower respond to pupil Gerry briefly escaping and seeing the outside world by staging his suicide in a theatrical play to ensure compliance from the rest. Much later on, most of the same pupils get killed by Mother's Corners, deluded into thinking this will bring Mother back and reset the world.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Michi becomes this if you give her a white ticket. Originally content to tell Robin to stop bothering her, she'll head to Settlement 17 before the final boss battle, just to look for Robin.
  Michi: If the worst doesn't happen, let's see each other again. I want to discuss wrenches with you... Robin.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • After being taken into The Tower, it's possible to use a long dive to enter the Strange Contraption entrance without your wrench. In order to keep players from getting stuck, this Strange Contraption entrance is one of the only ones that doesn't require you to use your wrench to leave.invoked
  • When you get to the moon base, the area lets you jump much higher than normal because the moon has lower gravity. While you're required to carry Royal for a bit in this section, Robin's jump height is still higher than average, but also affected by Royal's weight.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Subverted with the final boss, the Starworm Himself. Right after you finally beat it into submission, a hatch in His head opens cleanly to reveal a cockpit... with a very pissed, wrench-wielding bird-man inside. It's not actually an Eldritch Abomination.
• Die, Chair, Die!: You get Ivory Squares for breaking both the small light-grey busts of Mother and the similarly colored Isi icons. The game is called Iconoclasts after all.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Anything involving Ivory, especially in the early half of the game. It's white, gooey, and has a weird smell according to Mina. There's also the thing where One Concern agents can be filled with seed from the procreation-worshiping Isi to make them explode in splurts of the pearly liquid...
• Doing In the Wizard: The Final Boss, the Starworm, is treated as a god by the people of the world, especially the One Concern. But by the time you actually get to the Starworm and fight Him, it's revealed that the Starworm is the vessel for a large bird-like trucker alien, who was draining the planet of its Ivory because he needed to refuel his ship, the Starworm in question.
• Dragon Their Feet: Agent Black and General Chrome manage to outlive Mother. Chrome doesn't get far before he's taken care of, but Black lives long enough to fight Robin one last time, long after she has a reason to keep fighting her beyond revenge.
• Driven to Suicide: A few examples.
  • Early in the timeline: Agent Black mentions her repeated suicide attempts untold numbers of years ago, until she finally accepted it was too easy for her to be brought back.
  • We first get to see what the "prototype" Tolo mentioned at the One Concern camp does when a pupil at the tower, Gerry, briefly escapes it inside Hazard Armor and sees that the outside world is fine so he's shot with it, and led to commit suicide by falling.
  • Mr. Andress is implied to commit suicide by drowning. At one point, he can be seen sitting on a dock, and when talked to will muse about his dead wife and how she always wanted to teach him how to swim. On later visits, he's nowhere to be seen.
  • After the events of City One, Aisling Ferrier and Emmet Darland are seen trying to strangle each other with their scarves, fearful of the incoming Star Worm. It's somewhat fitting, given that Darland was one of those who ordered to stage Gerry's suicide. The end credits, however, reveal that he survives, while Ferrier is nowhere to be seen. Also in that same scene, another suit has blown his brains out, slumped over a desk with a gun in his hand.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: The Silver Watchman gets hit with a simultaneously figurative and literal version of this. The last time we see him, he's seemingly admitting respect for Robin and not attacking her. She starts to walk up to him... and then a chunk of the ceiling (with Royal aboard) falls out, trapping the Silver Watchman in a pool of water where his teleporting ability doesn't work.
• Dual Boss: Mother's Corners are an example where both bosses share the same health bar, and either boss can choose to hop into the background temporarily while the other keeps attacking.
• Easier Than Easy: The Relaxed difficulty mode, in which the player character has infinite health and gets infinite air underwater; their Tweaks still get broken if they take damage, though. There's only two instances where the player can die in this mode: getting crushed to death during the Omega Controller fight, and running out of time when escaping Midway.
• Easter Egg:
  • There are two One Concern soldiers with a lot of optional banter between each other who only make appearances if you go to obscure chest locations the first time you have access to them. One can be found in Shard Desert (right before you meet Royal, up and to the left of the save statue), another appears in Ferrier Shockwood (drop through the floor in the room to the left of the crafting table), and one more appears in One Concern West after getting the Usurper Gun (two rooms to the right of the save statue after the gun; use it on the bomb-throwing snake on the right and climb down the hidden ladder).
  • invoked The first time you visit the third floor on the left side of the Tower, there are two Bastion guards hanging out behind some boxes you can't climb over. Using a long dive to jump over the boxes reveals that unlike most characters you aren't supposed to interact with, these two actually have some fourth wall-busting dialogue:
    Right Guard: This game is too linear for skips.
    Left Guard: Watch out for softlocks.
• Eldritch Abomination: The final boss, the Starworm (also known as "Him"), a giant, pale worm-like thing that destroyed the moon and that the higher-ups of One Concern are attempting to escape via rocket from. This is actually subverted when it's revealed the Starworm is really a spaceship piloted by an alien bird-man who just wants his gas tank filled up with Ivory and doesn't even know what humans are.
• Elite Mooks: The aptly named Bastion Elites. Whereas the regular One Concern soldiers wear grey uniform with blue helmet visors and fight with submachine guns and grenades, Bastion Elites have also possess white breastplates and white helmets with purple visors. Their main weapon is a like an evolved version of Robin's stun gun, whose bomb shots produce a fiery Shockwave Stomp running in both directions, while their primary shot is also powerful (though it can be deflected at them with a wrench.) They can also dodge shots and rapidly cover distance by sliding along the ground.
  • The trope is subverted, though, in that while they are better suited to close-range indoor fighting, they are not exceedingly powerful next to the regular Attackers and Defenders. In particular, a full burst from the Attacker's submachine gun still does far more damage than any of the Elite's attacks, even though it's easier for the player to dodge. As such, when Mother's death and Chrome's revelations trigger a civil war between Bastion Elites formerly loyal to Mother, and Attackers/Defenders loyal to Chrome, the visible casualties appear in a strict 1/1 ratio. In the end, Bastion Elites appear completely wiped out, at least at City One, with regular Attackers prevailing, even if it only happened through sheer numbers.
• Enemy Civil War: When Chrome finds out about Mother's plan to flee to the Moon with a select few chosen ones and leave the rest of humanity behind, he stages a revolt to overthrow Mother.
• Eye Beams: Agent White's main ability. Its properties actually change depending on the colour of sunglasses he is wearing. Red makes him shoot a fiery beam of death, while blue gives him a Freeze Ray.
• Eyepatch of Power: Elro gets one after surviving the Penance that killed his wife and daughter.
• Failed Attempt at Drama: Subverted. After the Climax Boss fight in City One, Chrome says that the Starworm will show everyone a sign that he is the rightful ruler of the One Concern, and that Mother is a failure. There's a bit of an awkward silence before Chrome tries again, and then Mother explodes into an Isi tree.
• Fantastic Slur: Throughout the beginning of the game there's constant mention from One Concern loyalists of "pirates". As it turns out, they are referring to the Isi, an ethnic group of people with their own religion, who live off the grid to protect themselves from One Concern. The Isi indeed take offense to the term.
• Fauxshadowing: In the first few minutes of the game, you can find people wondering if the moon breaking apart is going to result in pieces of it falling down on the planet. This is the one thing that ends up not happening (or even mattering).
• Feed It a Bomb:
  • Both varieties of Croaktus in Shard Wastelands will eat bomb projectiles shot at them, blowing up shortly thereafter.
  • The Inti machine, used by the Isi to move Isilugar around has to have bomb projectiles shot into its mouth during the second stage of the battle.
• For Want Of A Nail: Pretty much the only reason Robin and Elro didn't die in the tunnels underneath Ferrier Shockwood is because the Carver machine was missing a single tooth in its buzzsaw.
• Foreshadowing: Quite a few things get hinted at pretty early on.
  • After beating the first boss, you may notice some large black feathers attached to the underside of the planet spine you fought the boss on, which obviously came from the Birdman (or at least a Birdman).
  • The Agents being superhuman is shown by Agent White throwing Robin into the wall in the scene introducing the Agents.
  • Agent Black's constant headaches get a small foreshadow by her pinching the bridge of her nose in almost every scene before her fights. A slightly bigger piece of foreshadowing is how she winces every time Agent White suddenly bursts out in his Large Ham No Indoor Voice.
  • At the One Concern camp in the Shard Desert, the other wanted fugitive is a "Myron" whose mapmaking is illegal. The reason why doesn't become clear until Darland Ascent.
  • Samba and Mina's dialogues drop massive hints towards their relationship.
• The Fundamentalist: Chrome genuinely believes in the religion he follows, and quotes the One Concern equivalent of The Bible or The Qur'an frequently, even during boss fights. He's also a hard line believer in everything that his religion is against, though he's open to discussion about the the differences and ideology between the pirate's religion and his own. Once he leads the One Concern militia into City One, he becomes a full-tilt Dark Messiah, wishing to remake the world after thinking himself to be "chosen" once he No Sells one of Elro's syringes of anti-Ivory material and losing faith in the higher echelons of One Concern. In reality, said syringe was only one of the two parts of the binary liquid, and he's killed in the Bastion when Elro hits him with the other component.
• Flipping the Bird: Agent Black tells a Bastion trooper that she is going to crush his skull using only her two middle fingers.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere:
  • Interestingly, it's not the enormous worm from the stars that crashes down onto your planet — the worm's pretty well established in the lore of the game, and bears a resemblance to some previously fought bosses. It's the giant, muscular alien bird piloting the worm, who was never hinted at before the fight, and is never properly explained afterward as the game ends. Context allows you to piece together that the planet used to be a fuel depot for starship pilots like him that was colonized by humans, but he's still an alien bird of an otherwise unknown species, with no dialogue and no connection to any other characters, and he's the final boss.
  • Similarly, the blue eye corruption seems to appear out of nowhere after Robin escapes the Tower and it's never explained what exactly it is. Computers in the underground area hint it's some sort of biotech, it can be seen when using the fast travel system at the core of the planet, it is present at the core of the Omega Controller, and the Starworm has a cluster of the eyes roughly where another creature would have actual eyes.
    • There's speculation that the blue eye substance is produced by the bird pilot species, whether naturally or through technology, and its existence is what allowed it to control Star Worm all along. For what it's worth, the article positing that link, among other things, was retweeted by konjak himself.
• Given Name Reveal: Out of all the Agents, we only learn Black's real name: Madelyn Binoche. Royal reveals Black's first name just before the last boss fight with her, and a plaque on the moon base reveals her last name. This moon base location also gives the names of several other characters incidental to the plot, but Agent Black's name is the only one that comes up as anything different than what she's normally called.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Agent White really likes doing this, even using it as an attack in his boss fight.
• Goomba Stomp: One of the ways in which Robin can attack. It obviously doesn't work on The Spiny enemies like , or the electrified One Concern mechs, but is a very useful way to knock out various One Concern soldiers, who have a hard time shooting upwards to defend from it, with Defenders only able to attack along the ground. Final Boss tries using it on you during the second phase.
• Green Aesop: An energy crisis is brewing in the background of the plot due to both the Tri and the Isi's overreliance on the non-renewable fuel, of which one can draw eerily similar parallels with real-world oil. Unlike oil drilling, mining for Ivory doesn't destroy the ecosystem... but instead can fracture a chunk of the world into space if done too much.
• Ground Pound: Robin starts out with the ability to do a midair flip and stomp downwards, which can break red blocks. It’s a surprisingly effective attack as well: many enemies can’t attack Robin while she's jumping on their heads (such as the Concern soldiers), and the stomp deals good damage even late in the game and will home in if Robin isn't perfectly aligned above an enemy.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • The last event of The Tower requires Robin to break into Black's office to attempt to save Elro, which manages to be more confusing than intended. In the preceding cutscene, Mina laments that she's lost her seeds and can't blow up the office's gate; Robin picked up the seeds while she was infiltrating the tower, so this seems to hint that Robin must figure out how to use the seeds or hand them over to Mina. Neither option is possible (the seeds don't come up again until One Concern West), and the actual solution is to jump up to a hidden ledge that leads to a crawlspace going directly into Black's room, which is marked by a small outcropping but is easy to miss in the panic.
  • All three key item quests have a confusing trait to them. Laurie's letter delivery is simply transferring key items back and forth between two people, but the location of the second person is hidden well. The cupcake quest starts simple since you can find its NPC in several areas, but the person you give the item to in Ferrier Shockwood just takes it without giving you anything; you must go back to the original person to get a different item and then backtrack to receive your reward. The Soldier's RSVP is the trickiest: you can get the letter after Isilugar Labs, but it won't be relevant until the end of One Concern West (at which point the game encourages to progress to the endgame), and you can't deliver the item since the recipient was killed in Black's rampage, so after examining the body you have to return to the Isilugar jail cell to report your failure and receive the quest reward.
  • Both Optional Bosses are tricky to activate, especially for players who make a habit of exploring past areas as soon as they can.
    • For Fitzroy, you first have to meet Leticia in five separate locations; the first time is in Blockrock right in the open, but the rest are in out-of-the-way areas around the map, one of which requires the Galvanized Wrench to reach (she places her flag in the room next to where she is, as a slight hint). The hiding spots are sequenced and she sometimes only appears after enough story progression, making it more confusing. After the final encounter, you have to swim to the secret cavern deep within Glass Strait; the only hint for this is that Leticia's flag is on the water's surface, but it's in an area that has little purpose otherwise.
    • Mother's Corners can only be fought at the very end of the game after the Starworm crash-lands in Blockrock, where it really doesn't seem like there’s anything else to do (unless you notice a missing space in the tweak collection box). It's at least easier to find the items necessary for the fight, though they are spread out a bit and one is way back in The Tower. The hint the items give is also a bit confusing.
  • There are only slight hints that the Usurper Gun's swapping shot works on City One's gatekeeper and Mother, and no hints that it can remove the blue eyes protecting enemies in the Impact Zone.
• Harder Than Hard: After beating the game, you unlock Challenge Mode, where you are a One-Hit-Point Wonder. Iron Hearts will still soak up a hit, but enemies don't drop Ivory cubes to repair them. Instead, they are repaired at Save Statues.
• Hell Is That Noise:
  • The screams of the mutated Agent Black in her final fight are downright bone-chilling.
  • The glitchy, distorted sounds after Robin gets shot with what amounts to a Battle in the Center of the Mind gun are incredibly creepy, leading into a similarly warped soundtrack for said battle.
• The Heretic: Well, the game is called Iconoclasts. But Robin begins the game as a heretic, since mechanics who aren't part of the One Concern are labeled as sinners who work against Him.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Inverted. Robin herself favors her stun gun and her trusty wrench. The setting is a mix of modern and sci-fi, so most other characters use guns or explosives. As a result, there's a total of only four sword-wielding characters across the game. Three of them are villains: The katana-wielding Silver Watchman, and Mother's Corners, two warriors who each carry broadswords. The remaining sword user, Elro, is not a villain, but he is a bitter and stubborn man that kickstarted the biggest conflicts in the plot, and his nihilistic attitude nearly has the team fail, several times. Also, by the end, he kills with no remorse. It even plays into his combat style: Robin merely stuns human enemies, but Elro uses his sword to go in for the kill. It really says something that the only Reborn who did not survive the fight at One Concern East was Lawrence, who fought Elro and got a sword to the back (while he was down, mind you) for his troubles.
• Heroic Mime: Robin does not speak at all and only communicates through emotes and body language (and a few dialogue choices), but everybody seems to understand her anyways.
• Hidden Elf Village: Isilugar, an underwater town that's home to the Isi (known as "pirates" elsewhere, not that the Isi are fans of the term), an ethnic group with their own separate religion. The town is equipped with its own labs, Ivory-mining facilities, and a machine that moves the town around to avoid detection by the One Concern.
• Hide Your Lesbians: Despite how obvious it is from the get-go, Mina and Samba are never explicitly stated to be a couple until the ending credits. Justified in that Isi culture places an extremely high importance on procreation, which means same-sex relationships are not tolerated and they have to keep it secret.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: During the third phase against the Starworm, the Birdman reactivates it once he gets low on HP. This comes back to bite him when the Starworm's right hand crushes him before dying itself.
• Honor Before Reason: Agent Black admits that keeping Royal and Robin from using the rocket to attempt to reason with Him is a poor decision, but her orders to protect the rocket are the only point of stability she has to cling to at that point.
• I'll Kill You!: One of the late-game bosses, the Dual Boss in the form of Mother's Concerns, has the boss vow that they'll rip Robin open and break her ribs for her actions up to this point.
• Implacable Man: Two of the boss fights near the rocket.
  • While you are trying to get the elevator working, defeating the boss is not an option; you must fix the elevator and get out of there.
  • A more classic version is Elro, going up against Lawrence. He can shoot, throw knives, punch him if he gets too close, but unless he runs out of HP, Elro keeps. On. Coming. Good thing you're playing as him, and your job is just to No-Sell Lawrence's attacks while you keep marching up and stabbing him.
• Infinity -1 Sword: The Usurper gun, which is acquired roughly three-fourths of the way through the game. It deals more damage than the standard stun pistol, hits enemies multiple times, and kills many enemies that are otherwise outright invincible. However, its shots lack the homing ability of the standard gun, and shooting too rapidly will cause it to overheat, limiting its DPS.
• Invincible Minor Mook: There are a lot of enemies that start off invincible (such as the Ghosmo ghosts), but the Usurper Gun can kill a lot of them. Ones that are always invincible include:
  • Herculeans are big one-eyed boulders that can't be destroyed, though they can be knocked back by Robin's wrench. One found early on can be killed by slamming it into the ceiling with a door, but this isn't an option for any others.
  • The Hazard Armor enemies are special Concern troops that can't be hurt or even stunned. The first time you encounter one is in a pseudo-boss fight where you have to play chicken with it while breaking down an ice block, but later ones just have to be avoided.
  • Blue-eye possessed Bipedro enemies also can't be damaged... by you. However, you need them to break down certain walls for you, so it's probably a good thing that you can't accidentally kill them and render the game Unwinnable. After they are done, there is usually a convenient pit of Spikes of Doom nearby that you can make them run into which will kill them. They also are the game's only non-respawning enemies.
• Injured Player Character Stage: The short segment where you play as Elro is after Black rips his arm off, so he is slowly limping around and barely leaves the ground when jumping. Despite this, he manages to have an awesome boss fight at the end of the section.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • There are five save slots, each with a different character's sprite marking it. First is Robin, the player character. Mina, the first player to join your party, is second, followed by your third party member, Royal. This is your first big clue that Elro didn't die with the rest of his family in the Penance, as he's the fourth save icon. Averted with Agent Black, who is the fifth save slot yet never joins the party.
  • There is a menu box that shows which tweaks Robin has made, with dots representing tweaks that she hasn't discovered. There are only around fourteen dots in the menu, but enough empty space in the box to hold two more icons; those spaces are for the schematics placed near the two Optional Bosses.
• Irony: One easy-to-miss example: When asked about One Concern, Yon at the Settlement 17's Church replies that they exist to "enforce His will of a preserved, untouched planet." In reality, One Concern's Ivory mining is the main reason the planet is suffering earthquakes as the planet's crust has difficulty holding itself together and resisting magma beneath, and if things continued the same way, it would have collapsed like the moon. Once One Concern leadership understood this, they opted to build a rocket to escape the planet and potentially relocate the rest of the population there if they had enough time, rather than trying to reverse the process. Moreover, the planet is anything but preserved: Omega Controller changes the shape of the entire continents at its whim. Since its destruction summons the Star Worm, the best One Concern came up with was to execute any map-makers so that the secret wouldn't get out.
• Ironic Echo:
  • When Agent Black sees the way that the Isi have treated the ark early in the game, she is appalled and calls them savages and rants about their mistreatment of it and how the One Concern must recover the vessel. When Mina sees that the One Concern have an ark of their own much later on, she goes on a very similar rant.
  • During the credits: the Ivory spores seen around the planet after Robin restored its original environment through injecting Isi seed into Star Worm's body are the same ones that fly around during the third phase of Agent Black's final fight.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Royal. He means well and can be nice when he's not focusing on himself, but it's clear the One Concern have their claws in him with the whole thing about him being Mother's heir.
  • Elro is fairly nasty to everyone, but he has the best interests of Robin and her friends at heart, and he's been broken by the events of the prologue. In reality, he’s a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk, as the traumatic events of the storyline push him into Villain Protagonist territory.
• Kill the God: Robin sets out to destroy the Starworm after Royal's death, as it's her last option. It works, and in the process reveals it was never a god at all.
• King Mook: Controllers are machines manipulated by the One Concern to enact Penance on sinners' homes, and Robin fights one as the game's first mini-boss. Much later on, she fights the Omega Controller, the biggest and most destructive controller there is.
• Lampshade Hanging: In Isilugar, after Robin defeats the One Concern soldiers, a few of them can be seen in a prison cell, still holding their guns. If you talk with the Isi guard, he says not to worry as they took all their ammo out. This was so Konjak didn't have to make new sprites just for this scene.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In the beginning of the game, Agent Black drops a bunch of info on Robin and follows it with "Well, that's your backstory out of the way."
• Like an Old Married Couple: Mina and Samba have this vibe going on. In the credits, it's revealed that they are indeed a couple, although they made it pretty obvious throughout the game even outside of this trope.
• Lost Technology: At Darland Ascent, it's revealed that the Controllers the One Concern use to enforce their will were reverse-engineered from the Omega Controller during Father's reign, with the technology being lost once the facility had to be abandoned. Sadly for the rest of the world, the pit they pull them from has enough in good enough shape that they're likely to not run out anytime soon.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane:
  • On the one hand, Ivory is revered as sacred and powerful for good reason, as it can cause superpowers in those exposed to high amounts of the stuff, ultimately culminating in psychic powers that border on Reality Warping and an absurdly powerful Healing Factor. Not to mention removal of it causes things to turn into a purple dust that inhibits said powers. On the other hand, considering how the birdman piloting the Starworm (AKA Him) treats the stuff, it may just be a strange, mutagenic oil.
  • There's a comparable quandary with the "Penance". While a house being ground down from underneath by a Controller acting as a giant buzzsaw is clearly not magical, it's unclear how much control the One Concern has over the process. Even Black appears genuinely uncertain when she asks Robin if she's the reason for all the Penance in her Settlement, so it's possible all Penance happens because the Omega Controller sent minor Controllers there, while One Concern can at most signal which house they would like destroyed, and ensure City One remains untouched. As such, Mrs. Andress' Penance for creating small maps was probably Omega Controller's own decision to ensure its planet-altering properties are not found out, since no-one besides Mr. Andress appears to have even known of it.
• Meaningful Name: "Iconoclast" has two general meanings: "a person who attacks cherished beliefs or institutions" and "a destroyer of images used in religious worship". Robin and her friends end up doing both in spades over the course of the game as they fight against One Concern. Even "God" itself does it, if unwittingly: lest you think the pilot of the Starworm was just to deflate the serious tone of the game, in fact it is the biggest Iconoclast in the story, its mere existence jossing all religious context the Starworm had.
• Mecha-Mooks: This is One Concern's primary means of offense aside from their troops, mostly showing up in their late-game facilities.
• Mega Neko: Mother fights you by using her Reality Warper powers to form a giant cat out of pavement, cars, and other objects in the vicinity, which she rides on.
• Mickey Mousing: Downplayed. The footsteps of each playable character are distinct, and they all provide different percussion-like beats when they move.
• Mind Rape: The Starworm is capable of doing this to people, as Robin and Royal find out the hard way. It appears that the Concern is also working on reverse engineering a gun that can replicate the effects. Careful attention will show that their prototype ended up in the hands of a sea captain who uses it to recruit and control his crew... and briefly in Mina's hands, when she fired at Robin but Robin dodged it.
• Mirror Boss: The Final Boss is a humanoid avian starship pilot/mechanic who fights using a wrench and several different types of Ground Pound.
• Missing Secret: There's a door in One Concern West that says that should the end of the world occur, scan your white ticket here. There's a way to get a white ticket as a sidequest item. The End of the World as We Know It begins to happen at the end of the game. Think these three things are related? They aren't.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • From amusing to serious: Mina tells Robin not to point her butt at her seconds before Agent Black gives Royal "The Reason You Suck" Speech, brutalizes and (temporarily) kills him.
  • From serious to amusing: The final boss battle has Robin undergo and break out of Mind Rape fighting against the Starworm, only for a giant muscular bird-person to jump out of it and squawk angrily at her, almost as if he's throwing a tantrum at his Starworm getting wrecked and the depot running low on Ivory.
• Mook Maker: The Kerthunk mech of the One Concern, and the Inti machine used to move Isilugar, but taken over by the Controller at first are both reduced to spamming weak Controllers in the last stage of their battles.
• Moral Myopia: Royal has a severe case of Protagonist-Centered Morality. Whereas Mother, whom he is meant to succeed, understands that people living under One Concern accept her as a goddess not just because of her power, but because she's using it for their good (even if it's her theocracy's understanding of good), Royal does not bother to act on anything but his feelings, expects "his people" to surrender their interests to his whims, and doesn't seem to care about killing them when they are in the way. He expresses this most clearly when he's imprisoned in a Detritus-filled room at the One Concern HQ:
  Royal: I have EVERY RIGHT. I am a son of HE, THE ALMIGHTY! What's a train compared to me? What's swordsman Silver compared to me? My choices are divine! Like Mother's!
• Mouth of Sauron: People who Transcend completely have their hair turn Ivory white, and are known as Mediums, who are said to be the only ones who are blessed enough to relay the Starworm's will to the rest of humanity. They wield psychokinetic abilities to manipulate objects that contain Ivory, but nothing else, and are treated much the way a king or queen would by the rest of the One Concern. Played with a bit in that the Sauron they're truly the mouth of are the Suits as opposed to the Starworm itself.
• Mr. Exposition: Old man named Yon at the Settlement 17's Church only exists to fill you in on the basic tenets of One Concern's beliefs.
• My Beloved Smother: Mina's mother constantly guilt-trips her daughter with the usual "You never visit! You're leaving me again! You don't love me!", as well as suggesting Mina get together with that Nice Isi Boy who keeps asking about her. Since she is in a wheelchair, this could also cross over into Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Even though Royal had crossed the Despair Event Horizon and asked to be left behind to die on the decompressing Midway moonbase, Robin obviously still feels enormously guilty for doing so. As soon as she lands back in Blockrock, the first thing she does is sit in the Troubled Fetal Position and cry, and during the Battle in the Center of the Mind portion of the Starworm boss, one of the shadows represents Robin's guilt for leaving behind Royal.
• Mythology Gag: The Isi lady who's always seen sitting on couches in Isilugar is based on the design for Mina that was used in Mina of the Pirates, one of Konjak's earliest big projects and the origin of Mina's name and base design.
• Neck Snap: The way Agent Black kills Royal at the Detritus pit at the One Concern West, before Robin drags him to safety where he could revive.
• The Needs of the Many: One of the Central Themes of the game. Both the heroes and the villains undergo a philosophy of doing the wrong thing for the right reason, or doing something wicked for what they feel is right. But while the heroes are willing to self-sacrifice in pursuit of the needs of the many, the villains aren't; the bad guys are either massive hypocrites who say they're acting for the good of humanity but really care only about saving their own skin, or intentionally manipulating this attitude for personal gain.
  • Robin, Mina, Royal, and Elro all practice some form of self-sacrifice in the name of the greater good. Robin has Chronic Hero Syndrome, Mina pursues the One Concern in the name of saving the Isi (even if she hates herself for it for constantly abandoning her mother and her girlfriend), Elro is willing to attempt a Heroic Sacrifice in the name of saving Robin's life by confronting Agent Black alone, and Royal eventually comes to lose his Holier Than Thou attitude in the name of helping the good guys and saving the world.
  • Agent Black, Agent Chrome, and Mother are all primarily interested in themselves. Agent Black is a hypocrite who slowly goes insane with grief and thinks that the world isn't worth saving, Agent Chrome preaches obeying Mother but secretly wants to take over the One Concern for himself, and Mother preaches loving all of her children while secretly wanting to use each and every single one of them for herself; if they can't help her anymore, they're worthless.
• New Game Plus: Beating the game allows you to save a completed file. Continuing the file will restart the game, but keep all of your Tweaks and materials that you've found.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Royal is particularly good at this. First, he accidentally activates and is forced to destroy the Omega Controller, which throws the planet's ecosystem out of balance and summons the Starworm. He heads to City One to confront Mother to have him heal Elro's arm, which basically allows Chrome to start his rebellion, which sparks a vicious civil war in City One. Royal also attacks the Starworm when it ignores him, only causing it to be angered and attack the planet. Though that last one may have been for the best, as the attack left a vulnerable spot on the Starworm, and it's likely a fight would have occurred regardless of Royal's assault.
  • Elro is a Knight Templar Big Brother of the first order, and his actions cause more problems than they solve. In particular, he started the whole affair by killing Agent Grey in a Moment of Weakness, which fueled Agent Black's hatred for him and his family, including Robin. Later in the game, Elro attempts to confront Black one-on-one, and gets his arm ripped off for his troubles. Then, when he has to press a button to launch a rocket into space with Robin on it, Elro outright refuses to do it, even though Robin needs to go to the moonbase to save the world. Mina even shoots Elro in the leg to prevent him from leaving. Later on, it's heavily implied that Teegan had to push the button to launch the rocket instead of Elro because of how stubborn he was.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Had the Silver Watchman not tackled Robin and ended up pushing her out of the tower in an attempt to kill her, it's very likely Agent Black would have successfully shot and killed Robin then and there.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Chrome is a cyborg cowboy general with superpowers who's also a cult leader of sorts.
• No Name Given: The ending credits list the name of every character, enemy, and boss in the game. Except the Birdman, whose name is left blank.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Agent Black is very much a student of the Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? school of thought. Indeed, she almost shoots Robin point blank in The Tower, and is only stopped by the Silver Watchman tackling Robin through the wall and out of the room they were in due to wanting to kill her himself.
• Non-Indicative Name: Agent Black is a very pale girl. Agent White is a Scary Black Man.
• No OSHA Compliance: Everything concerning the chemical sorting minigame you have to do to get the grenade launcher attachment. First off, despite being contained in what look like secure boxes, those will combust spontaneously if chemicals are mixed. Furthermore, mixing any amount of triangle-labelled chemicals with circle-labelled chemicals causes a massive chain reaction explosion, so naturally, you'd have to be pretty careful with handling them, right? No, the One Concern soldier carrying the chemicals has no regard to what is being put where, and another one gets bored and instructs him to move faster, giving you less reaction time to put the carrier on the correct level. Finally, once you beat the helicopter boss while on the train, Royal jumps in and blasts the cargo with his powers... except, you can see the triangle and circle labels pasted to the car you're standing on top of, and the subsequent explosion from the mixed chemicals causes the entire train to topple and crash.
• Notice This: In text bubbles, important information that you'll want to take note of is usually highlighted in bright red so that you get a clear idea of what needs to happen.
• Not So Invincible After All: The agents are stated to be unkillable because of their Healing Factor. Then Mina kills Agent White by stuffing Isi Seeds into his wounds that prevent him from healing, because the seeds grow from Ivory, and an agent's blood is rich with Ivory. Suddenly, the agents look a lot more vulnerable.
• Not So Stoic: Agent White's death by Ivory-accelerated Isi Seed growth clearly terrifies Agent Black, while Grey's death at the hands of Elro actually made her break down. And that's not getting into her Sanity Slippage in the game's climax after she's lost everything.
• Not That Kind of Doctor: Inverted. Dr. Gustavo is a medical doctor who says he's not the right kind of doctor to deal with the craziness of the Tower's pupils.
• One-Time Dungeon: Unusually for a metroidvania, there are several sections in the areas that get locked off through plot progression, such as the Omega Controller tunnels in Darland Ascent and nearly all of One Concern East. Collectibles are never placed in these areas, so no items can be missed in them.
• Only a Flesh Wound: Elro is a notable example of this. First, he loses an eye, but gets off with an Eyepatch of Power. Then, Agent Black rips off his arm, yet he doesn't bleed out (though he does receive medical help from Chrome's army a short while later. He also goes back to wielding his sword in the other hand soon afterwards. Lastly, he is shot in the leg by Mina, severely enough to lose consciousness for a while, and yet eventually regains consciousness by the time Robin gets back from the moon. Again, he receives medical help afterwards, but it's unclear how much time passed since then. At the end of the game, Elro is left crippled but very much alive.
• Optional Boss: There are two, optional bosses Mother's Corners and Fitzroy, both requiring some serious Guide Dang It! to find.
• Party in My Pocket: There are several moments when characters will follow Robin where she's going, but only she is visible during gameplay when this is happening. The game does show portraits of your party so you know who's following you though.
• Phlebotinum Overload: A combination of ivory blood, the Isi seeds, and the blue eyes causes Agent Black to mutate into a horrific, screaming monster.
• The Pig-Pen: Mina apparently isn't too keen on bathing frequently, since a Running Gag throughout the game is that she smells absolutely awful. During the fight against Ash, she has to hide in the pools of water, since he can smell her when she hides in the bushes.
• Pistol-Whipping: Mina's melee attack involves using the butt of her shotgun like a club.
• Player Nudge: The boss battle against the Omega Controller starts with a nearby One Concern soldier throwing grenades at it to knock it back, hinting that the player should use their concussion bombs to do the same.
• Playing with Fire: Mendeleev's powerset involves throwing around jets of fire, lighting herself on fire, and throwing fireballs.
• Plot Tunnel: There are large chunks of the game where the plot restricts Robin from backtracking to other areas until she makes enough progress.
  • After Robin washes up at Shard Wasteland, she's locked out of Blockrock until the first act of the game wraps up following Isilugar Labs, since she can't get out of Shard Wasteland without the electified wrench. This plot tunnel has several smaller plot tunnels within: Robin can't return to Shard Wasteland once she gets to Isilugar, and she can't leave Isilugar Labs until she beats Agent White.
  • Once Robin gets captured at the end of Ferrier Shockwood, she has to go through two areas (The Tower and Darland Ascent) with no way of leaving either until Mina unlocks a fast travel station for her.
  • You can't leave One Concern West once you enter it, and after finishing the plot there you have a brief opportunity to fast-travel out of it to resume exploring; go any further, and you enter the first section of the endgame and can't return to exploring until right before The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • Mother blames Royal for hastening the end of the world by destroying an Omega Controller, whose demise sent out a signal to the Starworm to come down, and made the earthquakes afflicting the planet from Ivory loss completely uncontrollable. However, Mother (and the other One Concern officials) are also partially at fault because none of them bothered telling Royal anything that was going on, namely that Ivory mining has left the planet on the brink of destruction, destroying the Omega Controller would just make things worse, and the One Concern has been working on a rocket to help at least part of humanity escape before it's too late.
  • Equally, when Royal first suggests his plan to see Mother, neither Robin nor Elro bother to tell Royal that Elro murdered an agent unprovoked, and so is highly unlikely to receive help at the best of times. Of course, Royal also neglects to mention that he's merely talking about spiritual healing rather than physical healing; had the rest of the party known that from the start, they likely wouldn't have bothered trying to confront Mother in the first place.
  • Nobody bothered to fill General Chrome in on the details of the One Concern's ultimate goal. His anger at learning about the plan and finding out that he and his men were going to be left behind is part of what inspires him to kick off the Enemy Civil War.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: Moonlight, the theme that plays during the last Agent Black fight, and also the scene leading to Royal's demise, is essentially a remix of the beginning of Ludwig van Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata".
• Puppeteer Parasite: The blue eyes you encounter in the Dark Cave (and seemingly everywhere else since) have this power. You'll occasionally find them stuck to the local wildlife and even to robots, although it doesn't seem to change their behavior much (most are hostile to you either way). When the Silver Watchman gets possessed, their influence becomes much more evident. You find him catatonic staring blankly into space, and later he fights by wildly swinging his sword around, completely abandoning his former precise, teleport-powered fighting style. The... thing that is possessing him even does so by attaching a tentacle to his head and dragging him around like a puppet on a string.
• Purple Is Powerful: Purple seems to be the signature colour of the One Concern, The Theocracy that rules the planet. All of the Quirky Miniboss Squad uses purple, and the Transcended all have purple artificial limbs.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Reborns — Lawrence, Nobel, and Mendeleev — who are fought at One Concern East.
• Rage Breaking Point: While Black never did like Chrome, this reaches its nadir in One Concern West when Chrome reveals that City One is willing to ditch all of One Concern on a dying planet.
  Chrome: Children... This is a tumultuous moment. We lack our prior comforts. What little we had. Frustrations rise... Questions become loud inquiries. But it is a time where we must first give sacrifice, so that together we can achieve greatness beyond what we had. What have you given up in the chase of a dream? Would you risk your own life? Perhaps... Perhaps you would, knowing your dream had been thwarted by someone else... ?
  Black: Chrome... ?
  Chrome: I have learned much. Your dreams are set. You exist solely to produce a rocket. It's a vessel meant only for mindless children, to leave you behind, and to die from a tragedy Royal has brought upon you.
  Black: (leaps off of the couch, doing a double Angry Fist-Shake) CHROME!!
  Chrome: Royal angered the almighty HIM and He is coming to answer Royal's sins. Your "royalty" has only brought you doom, but I bring you a solution. You have withstood much frustration, all from your set place in society. I spend every day seeing you suffer. Follow me, and I will have dialogue with Mother, and save the good, honest people here and elsewhere.
  Black: (entire head turns a deep shade of red) WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
  Chrome: Fated sister, you told me to not selfishly give thought only to individuals. I am here now, thinking of us all.
  (Black leaps to the podium and punches Chrome off of it)
  Black: SHUT... UP!!
  Chrome: Fated sister, you are still emotional and blinded from your grief. You must take your time to come to your-
  (Black tackles Chrome and proceeds to lay him out)
  • Mina and Elro never really did see eye-to-eye, but when she and Elro trek all the way to the buttons to launch the rocket with Robin and Royal into space, only for Elro to refuse to press his and begin walking to the rocket to retrieve Robin, Mina is so fed up with him that she blasts him in the leg with her shotgun.
• Railroading:
  • There's no getting around an event at Midway. You have to leave Royal to die on a decompressing Midway, as one scanner is pulled too far away from the door to work while you're carrying him, and the other is just flat out broken, meaning trying to use the Usurper Shot to position him near it would be pointless even if it did work. The game even twists the knife by giving you way more time than you need to escape, as if to suggest that there is actually a way to save Royal. There isn't; you have no choice but to leave Royal to die in order to continue the story.
  • Far more egregious example at City One. Usually, you are locked into a boss battle by the One Concern metal doors activating behind you. However, this doesn't happen when fighting Mother, because all she wants is for you to get out of the way, and let her converse with her people in peace. She even offers to talk to you at the Bastion at first, before ordering Bastion Elites to escort you there. Yet, you are forced to fight regardless, the way out blocked by an Invisible Wall, even though the reason you wanted to meet her in the first place was so that she could heal Elro, which she obviously can't do at all once she's dead.
• Rainbow Speak: Anything important is usually highlighted in red. This includes hints and things that may not seem important at the time ("cartography?").
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Agent Black gives a long one to Royal when she encounters him in the detritus pit outside One Concern West, where he can't use his powers, and after he killed the Silver Watchman. A fragment of it below:
  Black: You are a sheltered child. You don't know rejection. The world will die within days because of you. You are now the antithesis of everything you hoped to be.
  Royal: What are you talking about?
  Black: How would you rule, Royal? When was the last time you could feel for another person? You are a faultless production. Never had discomfort. Never had true misery. You could never relate to people. You're beyond change.
• Recurring Boss:
  • Two bladed Controllers are fought in the game: one with Robin as a Warm-Up Boss in Blockrock, and another with Mina in Ferrier Shockwood.
  • The Silver Watchman is fought four times. The first three fights are in The Tower, with one and two being Duel Boss encounters and the third being a gimmick fight inside a tiny elevator. You face him one last time in Dark Cave, where he’s being used as a puppet by the Possessed Thunk, a Kerthunk mecha infested with the blue eyeballs.
  • Agent Black is the boss of both One Concern West and the Rocket Platform, where she's technically fought three times; once as an invincible enemy while activating the rocket, another time as a true rematch in front of the rocket, and then as the Ivory Beast, which has two forms.
• Red Herring: The first time you see a Transcendence chamber it is made very clear that it's a big deal. Then Elro gets hurt. Then Elro starts bleeding to death near a Transcendence chamber. Then it is mentioned that nothing can heal Elro's missing arm short of stuffing him in a Transcendence chamber. Then nothing happens.
• Relationship Values: Say the right things to a few characters and the Battle in the Center of the Mind right before the Final Boss has one or more phases become easier by stunning them once you activate a switch, and Mina might join you for the Final Boss itself.
• Retraux: The Ivory Springs version was very much so, and the newer version still has elements like square flowers. However, they have become a plot element, being a sign that the planet is artificial, and everything is made of Ivory. Isi still possess seeds of real plants from Earth, which are round and contain no Ivory (thus Royal can't manipulate them).
• Right Hand Versus Left Hand: The upper echelons of One Concern are rather disorganized, thanks to an unfortunate combination of poor communication, differing ideologies, and a lack of strong, decisive leadership from Mother. As such, they often end up getting in each other's way, before things break down into a total Enemy Civil War.
• Ring-Out Boss:
  • Double subverted with the Carver. Once reduced to just a head, all the Carver machine in Ferrier Shockwood can do is spin its blades to produce debris. Elro will jam his sword into the blades to lock them up, at which point Robin has to charge up and grab a rail to ram into the head and knock it back; this repeats for a while, with Robin occasionally dislodging Elro’s sword from the ceiling, until the Carver nearly falls off a cliff (the "abyss" was only a few feet deep, but the Controller that Mina was chasing pops out and wrecks it).
  • Mendeleev works somewhat like this. If she's shot while she's in the air outside of her fiery mode, she gets knocked back and temporarily stunned. If she falls into an active electric current in this state, she gets zapped and loses a lot more health than she does from individual shotgun blasts.
• Relationship Reveal: Though it's heavily implied throughout the game, the ending credits show Mina and Samba reuniting for the first time since Samba's rescue from the Tower. The two ladies start passionately making out, confirming that the two of them are girlfriends.
• Rocket Fist: Inti does this during the first phase of its battle.
• Sad Battle Music: The final fight against Black has this, though it stops being sad once she goes One-Winged Angel. The same sad music returns outside of battle when you are escaping from Midway, and are forced to leave Royal behind to die.
• Sanity Slippage:
  • Agent Black's sanity doesn't slip away so much as take a running leap off of the deep end after the first time you beat her in One Concern West's detritus pit. We don't see the actual process, but once she shows up again at One Concern East for her rematch, she's clearly not in the best place, mentally speaking.
  • Mother's Corners are an even more severe example. When they are first seen in the flesh (after being featured on multiple wall frescoes earlier) next to Mother, they are giving measured advice just before the battle that kills her. The next time you encounter them, they have devolved to killing all the Tower pupils they can find in a belief this will bring Mother back, and crying out for your blood once they encounter you.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: The plight of the acolytes Mother was grooming in isolation to be the chosen ones to escape to Midway. Mina leaves the entrance to the Tower open, allowing the acolytes to wander into the outside world for the first time. Unfortunately, the result is that many of them die from the elements or are murdered by Mother's Corners, with the few surviving ones devolving into Lord of the Flies level dysfunction.
  • Royal's plan to communicate with the Starworm as well, though in this case the Shaggy Dog is agent Black. Having lost everything, Black found one last point of stability in guarding the rocket from anyone who would dare to use it. This unfortunately included the one person capable of beating her in a fight. The really sad part comes from the fact her death might have been avoided if Royal had waited for the Star Worm to descend to Earth, and then joined Robin as she would have tried to fight the Starworm anyway, allowing Black to live.
    • Then again, once Royal triggered Star Worm's arrival by destroying the Omega Controller, the best thing to do was probably to just wait for His arrival and get ready for a fight. Going to City One and killing Mother accomplished nothing; Chrome might have still triggered a civil war once Mother rejected his overtures, but it would have likely ended in a stalemate, and Mother would have escaped like she planned. It might not have been just, but at least the pupils wouldn't have died.
• Shield-Bearing Mook: The One Concern Defenders, who attack by producing a blue Shockwave Stomp, and are immune to regular melee and ranged attacks from the front due to their shields. They are still somewhat affected by the bomb detonations, but the easiest way to knock them out is through Goomba Stomp.
• Shielded Core Boss: The fight against Possessed Thunk involves damaging the Silver Watchman (who is being puppeted around on blue eye strings) until he falls over, then attacking the main boss while it repairs the strings. Eventually, the boss gives up on this and starts charging at Robin, though fortunately it's Weakened by the Light.
• Shock and Awe: Robin's wrench gets an upgrade that lets her charge it with electricity by spinning it, and a second upgrade that lets her bombs and missiles become charged as well. The Birdman can do the same thing with his wrench.
  • Pure electric attacks (not counting blue energy Shockwave Stomp attacks) are also used by One Concern's Spotters, which have electricity running along their whole body to prevent you from jumping on them and Agent Black, who can zap lightning on ground level, as well as Isi's Inti machine, which zaps lightning from its fingers during the first phase of its battle, when it's taken over by a Controller during the One Concern attack on Isilugar.
• Shockwave Stomp: A shockwave of blue energy running along the ground at a considerable height, and often in both directions, is an attack frequently associated with One Concern forces like Defenders, the Silver Watchman, Mother and even the Isi toolboxes that were taken over by the Controllers.
• Short-Range Shotgun: Handily averted by Mina’s pilfered shotgun, which has more range than any of Robin’s gun types, but absolutely no spread.
• Sigil Spam: Everything belonging to One Concern has their hollow triangle symbol plastered all over it.
• Signpost Tutorial: By means of signs that you walk past that expand to show how to perform commands. Some reappear in The Tower to serve as reminders as you recollect your equipment.
• Skeleton Motif: Seen in the second and third boss of the game - the One Concern's Kerthunk mech and Isi's Kibuka walker. Even though they are made by two diametrically opposed sides of the conflict, and fight in a different manner, both still feature a body section shaped like a skull.
• Small Girl, Big Gun: Robin wields a massive wrench, although her actual gun is appropriately sized, as is Mina's shotgun. Agent Black, however, shows up for her rematch wielding a rocket launcher with a length that's nearly double her height. Considering that she's Transcended though, it still works.
• Smug Super: As polite as he's capable of being, Royal has pretty clearly let his psionic powers influence how he perceives others. Mother doesn't display this nearly as openly, but the fact that she seems pretty comfortable with everyone else being considered lesser than her has to indicate something about her personality.
• Soap Opera Disease: Dr. Gustavo has an unspecified genetic disease, which makes him somewhat of a social outcast among the Isi since their culture highly values procreation and he refuses to have children since they would inherit his disease.
• The Social Darwinist: Lawrence takes a full tilt into this after Mother's death. By the time he's confronted by Elro, he's gleefully shot multiple One Concern soldiers and executes the last one point-blank while giving a speech on how they must become ever stronger to be the best protectors. He continues to spout quotes of this nature all the way through his battle.
• Spin Attack: In the Possessed Thunk fight the Silver Watchman it controls swings his sword so fast he resembles a buzzsaw, especially since he's hanging on a string a few feet off the ground the whole time.
• The Spiny: The first enemies encountered are small spiny creatures called Pluro, which can't be stomped at, but are easily shot or defeated with a wrench.
  • Then, there are the Squints, which are much stronger enemies of this nature encountered in the Isilugar Depths. They are heavily armored, and positioned in such a way that simply stunning them with a bomb shot still leaves their spiny backs blocking the path. Instead, you must curve it in such a way that it detonates the explosive tip of their tail.
• Stealth-Based Mission:
  • Early in the game, Robin has to escape from jail by crawling through the community center’s attic. The Concern soldiers having a break near the bar will periodically laugh loudly at each other’s crude jokes, allowing Robin to crawl forward unheard until she can get away.
  • The fight with Ash is a stealth-based boss. The boss is invisible, and if he sees Robin or Mina out of hiding, he’ll rush to them (regardless of who the player is controlling) and slam them into the ground for unavoidable damage. To deal damage, the duo has to stay in hiding spots (there are bushes and puddles to hide in, but Mina can only hide in puddles) until he starts wandering around; his location is signaled by sound waves and rustling grass, and he’s vulnerable to attack at this time.
• Stupidity Is the Only Option: Sure, Elro, let's ask your sister to repair the technology in your home, as is explicitly forbidden and punished to death by One Concern, right when the One Concern agents are around the place, and not, say, a couple days later! It's particularly galling given that Black and the rest were in a rush, and would have soon had to leave to meet Royal at Chrome's camp, while he wanted repairs done for the winter, so there was absolutely no rush.
• The Stoic: Agent Black, whose main emotions seem to be apathy and annoyance. Though battles against her late in the game prove she's Not So Stoic when she starts having a Villainous Breakdown.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Agent Black's habitual attitude. It's not so much that she's actually smarter as a combination of a permanent migraine (duplicating the usual effect of the trope) and having no real ideology beyond her job of keeping things functioning while being surrounded by idealists who believe nothing should be done except in accordance with their personal value system or religion.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: In its first phase, the Kerthunk boss can only be damaged when it throws its metal arm upwards, exposing a bolt that can be cranked to reveal its weak spot (which Mina shoots).
• Technical Pacifist: All of Robin's attacks only kill the local wildlife, and destroy robotic enemies and machines. Human enemies are merely knocked out, with visible circling stars above their heads. Throughout the entire story, she only ever directly kills one person out of necessity: Agent Black. In contrast, Mina's shotgun and Elro's sword actually do kill human enemies.
• Teleport Spam: The Silver Watchman's main ability, which he uses to dodge your attacks as well as close the distance to strike with his sword.
• Tennis Boss: Happens in the first phases of the Possessed Thunk boss fight where you have to knock back the charged projectile generated by the possessed Silver Watchman, which he can also knock back to you a couple of times before failing at that. Then again, you can just jump upwards to dodge that attack entirely.
• Theme Naming:
  • Every Transcended that isn't a Medium is named after a shade of grey: Black, White, Ash, Silver, Chrome and, er, Grey.
  • The Reborns appear to be named after famous scientists: Mendeleev, Nobel, and Lawrence. Elements 101, 102 and 103 of the periodic table are named after these scientists, furthering the shared theme.
  • All the areas in the game are named after one of the One Concern's human officials:
    • Blockrock - Bea Blockrock
    • Glass Strait - Joseph Glass
    • Shard Desert - Oliver Shard
    • Ferrier Shockwood - Aisling Ferrier
    • Darland Ascent - Emmet Darland
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Mina and Robin. Mina carries a large shotgun, bashes things with the butt of her gun, has enough body odor that a trained hunter can track by scent, and gets angry a lot. Her chosen profession at the start of the game is wandering the world looking for stuff to steal as a thief. Robin may be a mechanic with an oversized wrench, but also carries a small stun pistol, apparently bathes regularly, gets flustered and scared far more easily, and dolls up her hair. Her chosen profession at the start of the game is to fix up and nurture a settlement near where she lives. This distinction is on display in the fight against Mother, wherein Robin counters and dodges Mother's attacks, occasionally stunning Mother and pulling her out from protection while Mina is the one to do the actual damage against her by shoving seeds into her body, after Robin has made her vulnerable.
• Tone Shift: Agent Black heralds the more serious parts of the story. Especially once she rips off Elro's arm with her bare hands. That's where the story really takes a turn for the darker.
• Turns Red: Averted. Most bosses tend to become weaker as the battle goes, forced to use less effective and impressive attacks as they become more and more damaged. For instance, the final battle against Agent Black has her rapidly firing a rocket launcher at Robin, with multiple rockets at a time. Just before what would be the last hit, Black is barely able to stand, spitting curses at Robin and dragging herself closer, but Black's barely a threat anymore until you deliver the final blow.
• Underwater Base: Pretty much what Isilugar is. It's implied that it was a former colony ship used to settle this planet by humans from the original Earth.
• Undying Loyalty: The basic One Concern Mooks all have complete loyalty to General Chrome, and refuse to let anyone but Chrome and possibly his Number Two Tolo order them around. Not the Elite Mooks of the Bastion, not the Agents, not even Mother herself. They all universally back Chrome when he rebels against Mother, and go to war against Bastion Elites, who were loyal only to Mother herself. Even after Chrome dies, the end-game credits show the few surviving ones paying respects at his grave.
• The Unfought: General Chrome is never fought in true combat. He rides on the helicopter that you fight at the end of Shard Wasteland, but all he does is quote One Concern scripture while the helicopter is piloted by a generic Mook. He is ultimately killed by Elro’s serum at the end of City One.
• Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: Swimming of all things follows real-life rules. You can mash the jump button to swim faster, but your Oxygen Meter will deplete more quickly. By swimming at your default, agonizingly slow speed, you conserve oxygen much better and can cover far more distance. The game never tells you this, and knowing it is required to reach Fitzroy. It's impossible even with three Breathlesses equipped if you mash.
• Ungrateful Bastard: You'd think the Silver Watchman would be a little more grateful that you freed him from his blue eye possession. He still tries to kill you again the next time you see him, but quickly subverted when he planted his sword to the ground, a common visual shorthand of a warrior's salute. Pity Royal came crashing on him, and drowned him.
• Villain Has a Point: Towards the end of the game, Black calls out Robin for her brother Elro "think[ing] he has enemies all around him", which is fairly valid considering he mistrusts everyone Robin meets and killed the friendly Agent Gray with no prompting.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Agent Black pukes up Ivory rocket fuel multiple times during the second battle against her, after drinking it in an attempt to keep her Healing Factor going and stay on her feet after you've shoved multiple Isi seeds into her.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Chrome. Some of the Isi men also wear open shirts.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Even the most tyrannical of One Concern's rules do have a reasoning behind them. Executing the unlicensed mechanics who work with Ivory? The whole planet is made of Ivory, and its consumption is causing earthquakes and will lead to the planet's crust collapsing, so they cannot allow it to happen faster than they can finish building the rockets that would take the people elsewhere. Making cartography a capital crime as well? The planet is artificial, and it's constantly changing due to the Omega Controller, who was left behind by the Star Worm itself and so cannot be touched for fear of summoning it. There are even hints that the Omega Controller can trigger Penance itself to cover up its own existence.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: There are quite a number of NPCs and side characters that are briefly seen but never mentioned again. For example:
  • Thor and Thandie finally manage to reach City One, right on the same day civil war breaks out between Chrome and Mother's factions. They are never seen or mentioned again.
  • We never see any sort of resolution regarding Mina's strained relationship with her mother.
  • The last we see of Royal, Robin is forced to leave him behind in the decompressing Midway moonbase. It's not clear if he actually died or not, but seeing as he's effectively immortal with the only known methods of permanently dispatching him being the seeds or Elro's serum, it's highly likely he's still stranded up there, dying and regenerating endlessly.
• Where It All Began: The entrance to the last stretch of the game before the Final Boss opens up in the exact same spot where you fought the very first boss.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?:
  • An Optional Boss says something to this effect. Leticia sure doesn't, as noted when Robin defeats Fitzroy.
    "Eternity" is only the dream of irresponsible children. Nothing with a propensity for fear would ever endure eternity.
  • As revealed right before the last fight with Agent Black, she's tried to kill herself multiple times, but she always keeps coming back to life, which has pushed her over the edge mentally. It takes a Rasputinian Death to get rid of her.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Agent Black nearly says this word-for-word when Chrome insists on going through an unnecessary execution scene.
• World-Healing Wave: One occurs after Robin injects an Isi seed into Star Worm's corpse, which contained extraordinary amounts of Ivory. This causes natural, "round" plants, rather than the artificial square ones, to sprout all over the planet. It had also stopped the earthquakes, which were a precursor to the planet's crust collapsing apart due to being weakened by Ivory mining.
• Wrench Wench: The heroine, Robin, to the point of having a gigantic wrench that is used for most of the gameplay.
• X-Ray Sparks: Mendeleev gets zapped in this manner if she falls into an electricity bar during her fight.
• You Are in Command Now: Tolo inherits command of what remains of Chrome's forces after Chrome's death.
• Your Head Asplode: The demise of Agent Black's final form, preceded by her uttering "HEAD... ACHE..." for one final time before her head literally erupts. Even that doesn't completely finish her; it takes being launched into space and falling through the atmosphere that renders her completely dead.
• You Killed My Father: Though it's not exactly clear what caused the death of Robin and Elro's father, Elro clearly lays the blame on the Concern. This is what causes him to create his anti-Ivory chemical which he uses to kill Agent Grey.
• Zero-Effort Boss: The final shadow creature during the final boss's first phase (Black) can be shot without any resistance. If the player lets it crawl to the other side, it ends up exploding anyway.

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