Video Game / Nobody Saves the World

Nobody, holding the Wand of Nostramagus, and their various Forms (plus Nostramagus at the top)

Nobody Saves the World is an Action-Adventure game by Drinkbox Studios (the creators of Guacamelee!), released on January 18, 2022. The game's official website is located here.

You play as the titular Nobody, who wakes up in a magical world with little to no knowledge of who they are. They eventually get their hands on a magic wand that allows them to transform themselves and set off on a quest to save the world.

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The game features examples of:

• Ability Mixing: Nobody eventually unlocks the ability to use one Form's skills as another; for example, using the Rat's poisoning Gnaw move with Ranger's passive skill Poison Tipped to increase the speed of poison build-up.
• Ability Required to Proceed:
  • The guards won't let you leave the very first area of the game until a messenger arrives. You need to unlock the Ranger form and talk to them while transformed to be able to pass.
  • Only small forms, like Rat or Slug, can squeeze through narrow openings. Fortunately, Rat is the very first transformation you unlock.
  • To cross over water, you must be in either aquatic (Turtle, Mermaid) or flying (Ghost, Killer Bee, Dragon) form.
• Adventure Guild: The game has three different Guilds that Nobody can improve their reputation with: the Knight's Guild, the New League of Wizards (N.L.O.W. for short), and the Thieves' Guild. There's also a guild for postage workers, but Nobody never gets the chance to join.
• Ambiguously Human: The titular Nobody looks distinctly off compared to normal humans. Their skin is chalk-white and their eyes are black voids. They're also bald, despite several characters (themselves included) calling them a child. It's revealed later that they used to be human, but the Calamity stole their face and memories.
• Amnesiac Dissonance: It turns out that Nobody is a far better person than Nostramagus ever was. Even when offered a fragment of his memories back, he proceeds to completely disregard his former self, defeats the Calamity and saves the world.
• Amnesiac Hero: Nobody wakes up alone in a dingy shack, with no memory of how they got there...and also no pants. They turn out to be Nostramagus, a revered wizard in the setting that also doesn't wear any pants.
• Anachronism Stew: The setting mixes together High Fantasy wizards and witches, medieval knights, Nuclear Mutants, an alien spaceship, robots, and Magitek.
• Anti-Debuff: One of the passive skills that you can buy from the Merchant can slow down Poison build-up. When fully upgraded, it stops you from being poisoned completely.
• Anti-Nepotism: The Thieves' Guild leader only promotes the guild members who prove themselves worthy. However, this rule, among other things, causes his niece (also a member) to become more distant, eventually undertaking a dangerous heist of her own in the Guild's final quest.
• Anti-Grinding:
  • When players travel through areas after levelling up significantly, monsters will flee from them on sight, die in one hit and won't count towards any experience tasks, forcing players to progress to higher levelled areas to keep gaining XP.
  • Form Quests only progress so far until the first three Plot Coupons are cashed in and then progress can resume.
• Apocalypse How: The Calamity brings about a total planetary extinction, judging by how it overtook nearly everyone else by the end and Astrolabus felt that the only option he and Nobody have is to jump to another dimension to try and start over.
• Area of Effect: Ghost's basic attack damages every enemy in a certain radius around you. One of Monk's skills damages every enemy on the screen.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: "Ratsbane, the One-Punch Monk" at the Knight's Guild is constantly boasting about his skill in being able to vanquish rats with a single punch. His sidequest involves proving him wrong (which requires equipping the Rat with Egg's Hard Shell ability). Succeed and he'll be utterly shocked before conceding that he was wrong to underestimate rats.
• Attack Its Weak Point: This is how you fight the Calamity - stall its forces long enough for Randy to charge and fire a shot, wail on it when the weak point is subsequently exposed, rinse and repeat.
• Automatic Crossbows: The Ranger form's Arrow Flurry attack rapid-fires arrows for as long as their mana pool allows.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: After Nobody gathers the stars needed to access the king's castle by beating two monster-infested dungeons, the king says that only a very powerful wizard could've gathered them. Then he asks Nobody to introduce him to said wizard. Then, after Nobody defeats the monsters in the castle, the king comments how hard and scary it was... for him to wait outside while Nobody does all the work.
• Big Boo's Haunt: Damptonia. It's constantly dark and rainy, the music is spooky and moody, the denizens are mostly mages and wizards, their primary crop is pumpkins, the nearby graveyard seems to have a zombie infestation, and there's even a few friendly monsterfolk like a WolfMan suffering from allergies and a vampire that lives off of grape juice. Just about the only thing missing are actual ghosts aside from the unrelated Ghost form, that Nobody can unlock.
• Body Horror:
  • The Calamity infects everything, including people, with a horrible fleshy fungus. At later stages of the infection, those people are completely covered in fungal growths, losing the ability to move or talk, but they are still alive.
  • The citizens of Mutown have all been mutated after a meltdown on a nearby nuclear plant. The people with the more extreme mutations look like grotesque piles of mismatched limbs, though they don't seem to mind.
  • Peptro, one of the contestants in the Colosseum, can shapeshift into a pterodactyl, but he botches his transformation out of nervousness and turns into a nasty mix of both forms.
• Boring, but Practical: The Ranger's Dodge ability just makes Nobody dash forward while doing a little damage, but it costs no mana to use, can be earned fairly early, has a short cooldown that can be upgraded to be shorter, and is useful in just about any kit to escape dangerous situations, or just to move around the map faster.
• Braids of Action: Ranger, the first female transformation you unlock, has a pair of braids in her purple hair, and she is just as capable of kicking ass as the male forms.
• Brick Joke: You start off the first dungeon by being dropped through a trap door and enter the last dungeon by being dropped through a trap door into the opening in the barrier.
• Broken Pedestal: Being informed on Nobody's true identity causes Randy to reevaluate his relationship with Nostramagus, and makes him realize that his beloved mentor never truly cared for him in the first place.
• But Thou Must!: Most of the dialogue options are between two different ways of saying the same thing. Examples: upon finding Nostramagus' wand, the game asks if you'd like to give it to Randy; your options are "No" and "Hell no, he's a jerk." A later choice to let Randy apprehend you after acquiring a Plot Coupon is between "No" and "Haha...no," and someone asking if you're allied with Randy lets you say "No" or "A thousand times no." The handful that aren't this type instead give the option of rejecting a request or challenge, and for those you can return to choose again.
• Butt-Monkey: Randy experiences quite a bit of pain trying to capture Nobody, from a boulder falling on top of him to getting whipped around by a tentacle.
• Cap: Even after purchasing quests that can be repeated infinitely for more experience points, the protagonist's overall maximum level is 75.
• Charged Attack: Some attacks get stronger if you charge them. For example, Ranger's basic attack gets pierce and increased range, while Mermaid's gains Splash Damage and the ability to knock back enemies.
• Co-Op Multiplayer: The game features online cooperative multiplayer, in which all unlocks and progression are tied to the host's account but still allows for both players to explore and battle in different Forms (and complete two sets of Form-connected quests at the same time).
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Enemy wards make them immune to all damage except the type that matches the ward: sharp (green), blunt (brown), light (yellow), or dark (purple); being hit by the same type will break the ward and make them vulnerable to other types of damage. When an enemy has a ward, they have a coloured icon over their head denoting the type of ward, and this is also reflected in the enemy's overall color palette.
• Cooldown Manipulation: Rogue's passive ability reduces your cooldowns when you pick up money. Another passive skill that you can buy from the Merchant can also lower the maximum cooldowns of your skills.
• Crapsaccharine World: The bright cartoon visuals and comedic tone are contending with a full on invasion by an otherworldly Eldritch Abomination, filling the world with vicious, increasingly grotesque monsters, and slowly covering the environment with a fleshy-looking fungus. Even separate from that, there are dungeons filled with the bones of prisoners and guillotines, the desert civilization has been mutated after the nearby power plant suffered a radioactive meltdown, and there's generally a lot of figurative corruption and incompetence in the land. Naturally, nearly all of this is Played for Laughs.
• Cutscene Incompetence: The cutscene after your second major dungeon has Randy the Rad successfully knock down and disarm Nobody of their magic wand with a single blast of magic despite all the fighting you've had to have done just to make it that far. Thankfully, he also gets hit by some incompetence when the force of the magic causes the ceiling to drop a huge boulder right on top of him, allowing Nobody to recover and leave with the magic wand in hand.
• Damage Over Time: Poison and Burn Status Effects, which can build up from attacks or environmental hazards, inflict periodic damage for a time.
• Darkest Hour: Just before you enter the final dungeon, the Calamity's spread has reached a high point as every nearby NPC was overtaken by it.
• Dark Is Not Evil:
  • Nobody's somewhat offputting pitch black eyes set them apart from the rest of the cast and are present in every form, of which most range from somewhat threatening-looking like the battle-scarred Guard and shady-looking Rogue to blatantly monstrous like the huge-mawed Mermaid, the ever rotting Zombie who weaponizes The Virus, and the huge skeletal Necromancer decked out in spiky, villainous-looking armor. None of this changes the fact that Nobody is in fact trying to save the world.
  • The hooded Merchant is obviously some sort of scaly, reptilian creature that makes ominous remarks about some of his wares potentially being cursed and will cheerfully refer to the Necromancer form as "Dark Lord" like certain evil cultists hanging around the hills north of Damptonia. Nonetheless, he's a valuable asset to Nobody and pretty friendly if snarky.
  • The citizens of Mutown have all been horribly mutated after a nuclear plant meltdown. Some of them look more grotesque than the monsters you slay, but aside from their looks, they are just regular people living normal lives.
  • Damptonia is populated by witches and monster NPCs like a vampire and a wolfman, but they are all perfectly friendly.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Running out of HP unceremoniously dumps Nobody back to the last save point or region transfer with full health and mana, retaining all quest progress and currency earned. This means very little is lost upon dying on the world map. Dying in dungeons is worse, as it means starting the dungeon over unless you've reached the checkpoint placed just before the dungeon's last battle, but even then, everything else is retained, and no Game Over message appears.
• Determinator: For what it's worth, you have to give credit to Randy for how much punishment he gets put through and still keeps going. He even manages to fight the Calamity, alone, for hours.
• Downloadable Content: On September 13, 2022, the "Frozen Hearth" expansion became available to purchase, adding a new area and two new forms (the Mechanic and Killer Bee) to the game.
• Elite Mook: Elite enemies are bigger, fiercer-looking versions of regular enemies, using elaborated hard-hitting versions of the same attacks and possessing more health.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Calamity, a monstrous organic mass that's trying to consume the world. Making matters worse, it quickly becomes obvious that the thing is sentient and definitely malevolent.
• Escort Mission: One side quest has Nobody protect a very slow mail-rabbit so he can safely deliver an order of dragon-nip, but it's completely optional.
• Evil Sorcerer: Astrolabus is hyped up as a potential threat, due to cursing Marty Joe, Randy suspecting that he's responsible for Nostramagus vanishing, and Octavia unable to contact him since The Calamity appeared. It turns out to all be Red Herrings and he's been trying to help Nostramagus, who is his brother.
• Evil Tainted the Place: When you get further into the game, old areas you've already cleared will start to have the fleshy growths of the Calamity sprinkled throughout the landscape, showing how dangerous it is and how it's spreading even with Nobody slowing it down.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When Randy finds out that Nobody is Nostramagus, he goes on a large rant about all the crap Nostramagus has put him through before realizing that Nostramagus never intended on actually allowing him to graduate as he was a source of free labor for him.
• Exponential Potential: Eventually, you're able to equip three additional active and passive abilities to each form. Considering that there are several forms, each with at least one active or passive, and several more passives you can buy in the shop, there are a multitude of ways you can build each form.
• Eyeless Face: No matter your Form, Nobody has pitch-black empty sockets instead of regular eyes like the NPCs. The only others to share this are victims of the Calamity's Mystical Plague, indicating that it had something to do with Nobody's current state.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: Nostramagus. He was revered as being the most powerful wizard in the land but there's a lot of evidence to suggest that he was a horrible, selfish Narcissist and a Nominal Hero at best. Also the Calamity plaguing the lands is entirely his fault because he got bored and wanted a challenge and got more than what he bargained for. As Nobody, he eventually manages to avert this over the course of his adventure.
• Fantastic Racism: The shop at Mutown may apparently have nice sales, but the shopkeeper only allows humans and mutants to enter his store. Not only does this mean that animal forms get chased out, he'll refuse any forms that don't fit his sometimes obtuse standards of humanity i.e. the Mermaid isn't allowed because she's ONLY half-human and half NOT human, while undead forms like the Zombie and the Ghost aren't allowed due to dying and "forfeiting their human rights". Interestingly enough he does seem to tolerate the default "Nobody" form though he simply calls them a child so it's not clear if he considers them a human or a mutant.
• Featureless Protagonist: The protagonist's default Form, "Nobody," is a naked white humanoid with an Eyeless Face as their only defining feature. An NPC in a town full of humanoid mutants mistakes Nobody for a child suggesting that they're on the shorter side. Invoked; The Calamity stole any defining features from Nostramagus's form as part of the ritual to summon it to the material plane.
• Forced Transformation: Nobody's Ability Mixing is unlocked by Marty Joe, a man that's been cursed into the Form of a giant hammer by a magician named Astrolabus. By the end of the game, Marty's embraced it, and would rather help repair the world than be uncursed.
• Fragile Speedster: The Rat. It's small with a weak defense, but that doesn't matter due to it being one of the faster forms and how ludicrously fast Gnaw is, building up Mana faster than any other default attack and chipping away at enemy health just as quickly. It helps that the first attack it learns is Consume.
• Fun with Acronyms: The New League of Wizards, or New L.O.W. for short.
• Gameplay Grading: Every Form has a Grade, from F to S, corresponding to FP earned via quests you've completed for it (such as using a specific attack X number of times). When the Grade increases, more Forms are unlocked, in addition to the Form itself becoming more powerful and unlocking new abilities which can then be mixed.
• Gender Bender: The Forms that Nobody acquires appear to be different genders; for example, the Bodybuilder has a chiseled male physique, while the Mermaid wears a Seashell Bra.
• Gingerbread House: The Sweet Home dungeon is a witch's house made of candy, though she assures you it's not to lure children for her to eat: it's to lure ants.
• Gone Horribly Right: Nostramagus wanted to fight a strong enemy, so he decided to summon one, which killed his brother and nearly killed him too. And to make things worse, said enemy is the Calamity that is currently destroying the world.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: The Guard Form has a small, stitched-up scar right under his right eye.
• The Greys: The aliens from the crashed UFO are stereotypically bald and grey-skinned with large black eyes.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot:
  • Played Straight for the first two forms unlocked after ranking up with the Rat form. The tough-looking, armored, masculine Guard fights with a sword and heavy stomp attacks while the more feminine Ranger with long braided hair shoots arrows from afar.
  • Averted and zigzagged with later forms like the extremely masculine-looking Bodybuilder fighting by tossing barbells from a distance while the Zombie has long hair, visible breasts, and a tattered dress and fights by wildly clawing and biting at close range. Your Ability Mixing capabilities (which allow any form to use both ranged and melee attacks) only straddle the line even further.
• Halloweentown: Damptonia is populated by witches and classic monsters like a vampire and a wolfman, pumpkins are growing everywhere, and black cats roam the streets, but the citizens are perfectly friendly.
• Hero of Another Story: When you met back up with him in the final dungeon, Randy has been battling the Calamity for hours, and refuses to give up even at the point of exhaustion. The Boss Battle isn't just you defeating the Calamity; it's running interference for Randy so he can expose the Calamity's weak point for you.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In his attempts to catch Nobody, Randy brings a lot of misfortune on himself. His first attempt ends with Randy trapped behind the bars in a monster-infested dungeon. In his second attempt, he knocks out Nobody with a magic blast, but damages the ceiling in the process, which falls on him and breaks his leg in 83 places. For his third attempt, Randy summons a tentacle monster to attack Nobody, but the monster promptly turns on him and starts smacking him around.
• Hugh Mann: The aliens from the crashed UFO insist they are totally humanoid human Earth-dwellers. They also wear horrible yet somehow effective disguises that consist of coats, hats, glasses, and/or fake facial hair.
• Idle Rich: The king of the land, once the first Plot Coupon has been obtained from his Calamity-infected castle, is perfectly fine with Nobody gathering the rest themself without any of his help.
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: The Mouth of Hell is where the Calamity is at its strongest and it's also where the final battle takes place.
• Inspector Javert: The main reason Randy keeps hounding you is because you have Nostramagus's wand, insisting that you give it to him and even landing you in a cell at one point. Granted, Nobody did steal the wand (though it later turns out Nobody was unknowningly getting their gear back from themselves), but still.
• Iron Butt Monkey: Every time you defeat a plot dungeon, Randy gets more and more injured, but he keeps coming after you to get the Wand and to save his Mentor. This makes his evolution into The Determinator not only organic but something to make the audience cheer for him.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: The Calamity refers to Nobody - and later Randy - as "it", showing how worthless it considers them.
• It's All About Me: Nostramagus' house is adorned with a neon sign stating "Home of the Legendary Nostramagus" and the game's first Demi-Dungeon is a museum in his basement dedicated to himself that includes such sights as statues of a more-muscular version of himself. In the endgame, his own brother is surprised that Nobody is willing to dive straight into Hell to save the world rather than flee to a new dimension.
• Jerkass: Randy the Rad, Nostramagus's (repeatedly held-back) assistant acts incredibly condescending when you first encounter him, immediately demanding that you fetch him a complicated coffee order. Nostramagus himself turned out to be an arrogant asshole as well, and Randy's behavior could be explained as him trying to imitate his mentor. The second he rejects Nostramagus, Randy becomes a lot more competent and pleasant.
• Killer Rabbit:
  • The rabbit familiars summoned by Magician's Hat Trick skill look like normal white bunnies, but they are fast and deal a lot of damage with their attacks, quickly tearing your enemies to shreds.
  • Some of your forms, such as Rat, Turtle or Slug, are small and harmless-looking, but they are just as capable in a fight as the more monstrous transformations.
• Kill It with Fire: The Dragon form's attacks can apply burn to enemies, which does lasting damage if enough burn is built into them. Some enemies also have fire attacks that apply burn to Nobody in the same manner.
• King Mook: Bosses are step up above Elites, having several health bars and an additional gimmick in some cases.
• Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: Your aquatic forms can swin in lava just as easily as in water, and while it does inflict the Burn status effect, the damage is relatively minor. Also, Burn takes some time to build-up, so if you're quick enough, you won't be hurt at all.
• Life Drain: The Rat's Consume ability lets you heal back some of the damage you dealt, and the Zombie's Zomnomnom passive applies this to every ability. It's a necessary part of the Zombie's playstyle due to having a constantly rotting body that makes HP slowly drop while in this form.
• Magikarp Power: Downplayed. The Egg form is perfectly respectable in its own right, but it's notably the only form that doesn't improve by fighting, meaning the player has little incentive to use it, and its basic attack causes it to take damage if it hits a wall. Getting it to Grade S is one of the necessary steps to unlocking the Dragon, the most powerful of Nobody's forms.
• Magitek: Octavia is a mix of a witch and a Mad Scientist, and her tech is the same. There is a satellite dish covered in runes on the roof of her house, the Cauldronator she uses is pretty much a magic computer, and her Death Ray can be powered by a magic gem.
• The Minion Master: Multiple forms allow Nobody to conjure up familiars to fight for them. Magician summons rabbits and tigers from thin air, Mechanic builds stationary turrets that attack at range, Necromancer summons demons from corpses, and Zombie infects enemies with The Virus, turning them into zombies when they die. The familiars themselves are quite fragile and constantly lose health, but they deal a fair amount of damage and can be enhanced via passive skills.
• Missed the Call: The note on Nostramagus's wand make it clear that Randy the Rad was supposed to get the wand that Nobody uses for the rest of the game, but Randy's so much of a Jerkass that Nobody decides to keep it for themself, beginning their journey. It works out pretty well since it eventually helps Randy grow considerably as a person and by the end Nobody and Randy team up to defeat the Calamity and save the world anyway.
• Morphic Resonance: No matter what form Nobody takes, they always have black, hollow eyes.
• Multi-Mook Melee: Many of the Demi-Dungeons have you fighting waves of enemies in place of a Boss Battle.
• Mundane Utility: At one point, you have to use your magical shapeshifting abilities to...bypass the "one per customer" limit on a store's sale.
• Mystical Plague: As it turns out, not only does the Calamity consume the land, it also takes hold of the people as well, covering them in fungal growths and leaving them without any eyes.
• Necromancer: The Necromancer form, is a towering, skeletal figure clad in dark spiky armor and robes. It specializes in using the corpses of enemies or familiars, to summon undead skeletal demons to attack foes with. The summoning spell itself also deals AOE damage and the Necromancer can also shoot lightning as a basic means of defense. Certain not-so-secret occultists hanging around north of Damptonia will hold the Necromancer in very high regard using terms of respect like "dark lord" and "my dark liege".
• New Game Plus: Beating the game once lets you carry over all of your experience, Form grades, and collected power-ups into a new world layout. However, every enemy will scale to your level, all of the dungeons gain additional difficulty mods (such as One-Hit Kill for both you and the enemies, or disabling Mana Regen on your attacks), and the only way to progress through the main plot is by clearing the side dungeons, as they become the sole source of the star charges that unlock the legendary dungeons.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The reason The Calamity is present in the first place is because Nostramagus wanted to test out his new wand and, unsatisfied with merely killing were-slimes with it, summoned The Calamity with the Dragon Lord's Tome. This backfired immediately, with The Calamity taking Nostramagus' body and memories, and would have also taken his life if not for Astrolabus's Heroic Sacrifice.
• Nuclear Mutant: Most of the denizens of the desert due to the recent nuclear meltdown of a nearby plant. Despite a number of them being reduced to rather grotesque forms as a result, everyone's pretty nonchalant about it. It helps that they've managed to contain the meltdown and aside from the mutations, the people there still live pretty normal lives like the other civilizations you see.
• Older Than They Look: Nobody apparently gives the impression of being childlike. Young apprentice wizard Randy mistakes them for a fellow apprentice, the shopkeeper at Mutown calls thinks they're a child, a resident of Stonefish Village calls them a baby salamander, and an optional Objective implies that Nobody sees themself as some sort of "bald baby". They're actually the great Wizard Nostramagus who used to be a bulky, wizened older man with a wild scruffy gray beard until their experiences with The Calamity reduced them to their current form.
• Our Fairies Are Different: On the map, fairies look like balls of pale blue light with butterfly wings. Talking to them shows that they look more like shady drug dealers (also with butterfly wings). Each fairy increases your maximum mana and finding them all is one of the sidequests.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: The Mermaid has several archetypal traits you'd expect like a greenish fishtail, long flowing hair decorated with shells and seaweed, a Seashell Bra, and even the ability to control water for self-defence. However none of that distract from the huge, monstrous maw full of sharp, jagged teeth. Combined with her "human" upper body having scaly, mottled pale-blue skin and Nobody's empty eye sockets, she's arguably more monstrous-looking than the Zombie form.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: The "cunning disguises" that the aliens wear consist of coats and hats with some glasses and fake moustaches thrown in, which does nothing to hide that they are The Greys. Funnily enough, the aliens themselves are fooled by these "disguises".
• The Paralyzer: The Magician's passive skill Stun Powder adds the ability to inflict Stun status effect with every attack which makes enemies unable to move for a short period of time.
• Pec Flex: The Bodybuilder will constantly flex his chest when facing forward.
• Player Nudge: Several form quests require you to accomplish tasks using abilities from other forms, giving players hints on possible synergies they can use.
• Poke the Poodle: One of the Thieves' Guild missions is to exploit a One-per-Customer deal to buy some daggers for cheap.
• Poisoned Weapons: The Rat form's Gnaw builds poison in enemies, as does any attack while the Ranger's Poison Tipped passive is equipped. Once enough poison is built into an enemy, they gain the poisoned status and take constant damage while it lasts. Some enemies also have attacks that build poison into Nobody in the same manner.
• Ponzi: Alastair, the head of the N.L.O.W., runs it like this. Nobody is forced to pay fees for being a member, plus taxes for ludicrous reasons, and later runs into a member of the N.L.O.W. who tries to pull Nobody in with a survey. Thankfully, by the time Alastair gets so bold as to take all your money, the other members are sick of him and throw him out.
• Procedural Generation: Although the overall plot remain consistent, the layout of the dungeons are randomly generated for every playthrough. The dungeons also change if you get killed inside (which kicks you back to the entrance), with the in-game justification being that the Calamity is causing this flux.
• Production Throwback:
  • After Randy accuses the protagonist of stealing Nostramagus's wand, one guard checkpoint will be lined with Wanted Posters for their "Nobody" form...and one for Flame Face from Guacamelee!.
  • One of the random soda machines advertises a drink called "Guava Melee" with a picture of Juan Aguacate.
• Protagonist Title: Nobody Saves the World, starring Nobody.
• Protection Mission:
  • One side quest tasks Nobody with protecting an artifact hunter on the other side of a fence using ranged attacks, starting over if they run out of health.
  • In the final battle, Nobody has to keep Randy protected so he can charge up his spell to make the Calamity vulnerable. Any hit on Randy will drain his spell charge, and if he loses all his health, his charge empties, his health refills, and the wave starts over.
• Resurrected Romance: The crux of one of the side Objectives is a dour mage slug hanging around the the Cursed Hills north of Damptonia. He's mourning around the grave of his beloved "Goo-anna" and is desperate to find a "Slug Necromancer" to revive her. This means using the Necromancer's "Summon Demon" skill while in the Slug form on her grave. Upon resurrection as a skeletal imp, Goo-anna is initially worried about how "dry" and "bony" she's become but the slug mage doesn't mind is just happy to have her back and the pair are eternally grateful to Nobody.
• Romance Sidequest: Played With. There is an early game optional Objective in which you "experience unbridled love"... but it involves using your apparently female Horse form and falling in love with a certain stallion that gets freed at the end of the Horse Mines dungeon. It's almost a parody but the writing suggests that Nobody as the Horse legitimately falls in love with him. If you interact with him afterwards, Nobody even contemplates giving up on their journey and just staying with him.
• Rummage Sale Reject: Official artwork for Nostramagus◊ shows that his outfit is completely mismatched, combining magic and warrior outfits as well as having just a sock on one foot and a sandal on the other.
• Schizo Tech: New Oldtown looks like a stereotypical medieval village that has a king's castle and a tavern with the guild of royal knights. Damptonia is similar, only populated by witches. But Mutown has a nuclear power plant and a giant robot. The witch Octavia is also a Mad Scientist who uses Magitek, and one of the dungeons is a crashed alien spaceship.
• Sealed Evil in Another World: The original League of Wizards banished the Calamity from the world. Unfortunately, it didn't stick.
• Seriously Scruffy: Every time Randy tries to catch Nobody and fails, his appearance becomes notably more disheveled, including a scruffy beard, asthma attacks, and a black eye.
• Ship Tease: Of all people, Randy and Danielle the Mummy decide to go on a date during the game's ending.
• Shout-Out:
  • Yung Venuz appears on a wanted poster in Mutown.
  • Knife Bro's training hall has swords from various other series hanging on its wall, including the Master Sword, the Monado, the Buster Sword, the Transistor, the Keyblade, the Dragon Slayer, and an Energy Sword.
  • The Stonecutters' Sacred Parchment is hanging on a wall in the N.L.O.W. headquarters.
  • One shop that is the subject of a side quest uses bottle caps as currency.
• Signature Headgear: Nostramagus is always depicted as wearing a Robe and Wizard Hat on top of a barbarian helmet and upper armor. Nobody starts wearing the hat and helmet after the Tomato in the Mirror reveal, but throws them away in the ending after deciding That Man Is Dead.
• Silent Snarker: Nobody is a Silent Protagonist who puts on an annoyed expression whenever someone says something inane, which is often.
• So Proud of You: Downplayed with two major characters.
  • Astrolabus immediately changes his plans to flee when Nobody wants to charge into the Mouth of Hell to save Randy. He remarks that the idea of his brother putting someone ahead of himself is remarkable.
  • Because of his situation, it is unknown if Nobody at any point sees Randy as his protege. However, Nobody certainly comes to respect him enough and after the final battle, attempts to pass Randy his wand.
• Somebody Named "Nobody": The Amnesiac Hero player character is simply referred to as "Nobody" in their base form.
• Spoiler Opening: The opening "Press Start" screen, as well as game's header on Steam and other digital markets, spoil all of the Forms that Nobody can unlock. The fact that Nostramagus is also there is a major hint towards the mid-game twist.
• Stage Magician: Despite the mostly medieval fantasy setting, the Magician form is based on this complete with a snazzy tuxedo and cape, black top hat, and attacks based around playing cards and summoning rabbits and white tigers.
• Star-Shaped Coupon: Aside from XP and FP, most side quests grant star charges to Nobody's wand when completed, which are required to access the Legendary Dungeons that advance the plot when cleared. This encourages earning enough XP and FP for the challenges ahead, but some star charges can be purchased at the shop to diminish this.
• Status Buff: You can temporarily increase your defense with Turtle's Slow and Steady skill and your attack with either Bodybuilder's Pump Up skill or Killer Bee's passive Nutri-Gains ability, which raises your attack whenever you eat any food item.
• Status Effect-Powered Ability:
  • Rat's Detonate skill damages enemies that have Poison status effect.
  • Slug's passive ability increases the critical damage inflicted on enemies with debuffs.
• Status Infliction Attack: Some of your skills can inflict various Status Effects, such as Rat's Gnaw that inflicts Poison. There are also passive skills that add Status Effects to all your attacks, like Stun Powder. Possible effects include Poison, Burn, Stun, Infected, Slow, and Fear. All of them (aside from Infected) need several attacks to build up before they can take effect and they dissipate with time.
• Suicide Mission: Randy forces his way through the barrier to the Mouth of Hell to defeat the Calamity, with everyone being sure that he is facing certain doom. With your help, he survives and succeeds.
• Supernatural Fear Inducer: Fear status effect inflicted by Ghost's skills causes enemies to run away from you.
• Taking the Bullet: Astrolabus took the killing blow meant for his brother Nostramagus/Nobody to prevent the Calamity from completing the ritual to break entirely free.
• That Man Is Dead: At the very end of the game, the Calamity offers to return Nostramagus to his regular Form, but he decides to forsake it and continue living as "Nobody" rather than accept a Deal with the Devil, especially since his past self was an arrogant asshole and an all-around unpleasant person.
• Thieves' Guild: You can join three different organizations over the course of the game to progress the plot, one of them is the Thieves' Guild. Although you don't actually join it intentionally, since you're just trying to get back the Plot Coupons stolen from you by one of the guild members.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: After all the injuries and misfortune Randy has suffered during the game, the ending not only has him celebrated as one of the two people who stopped the Calamity, but he gets a future date with Danielle the Mummy.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Midway through the main plot, the amnesiac "Nobody" learns that he IS the missing Nostramagus. Later on, it's additionally revealed that their current state was caused by The Calamity...which Nostramagus summoned himself, as a worthwhile opponent.
• The Unintelligible: One of the key NPCs is Danielle the Mummy, whose voice is always completely muffled because of the bandages wrapped around her mouth. Every other NPC understands her perfectly, though.
• Vegetarian Vampire: A vampire NPC is able to subsist on grape juice. However, he's been kicked out of his castle by monsters, and he's worried that without access to his stash, he might have to resort to drinking cow blood.
• The Virus: Weaponized by The Zombie's "Zombite" skill which inflicts the "Infected" status effect on enemies. If an infected enemy dies, they spawn a generic zombie. These zombies can also inflict the Infected status effect with their basic attack so in a crowded gauntlet of enemies, it's a viable strategy to just start a miniature Zombie Apocalypse.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: The crux of gameplay progression is completing quests to gain experience points and FP, the latter of which powers up and unlocks new "Forms," such as a Rat, Ranger, or Slug, that have different abilities and can be used to reach new areas.
• Wham Shot: When Nobody encounters the Secret Corp Scientist, on the edge of succumbing to the fungus sickness, after she gives him the code and fully succumbs, her eyes turn completely black just like Nobody's, showing that the Calamity has something to do with their current state.
• You Dirty Rat!: The first non-default "Form" you unlock is a Rat, whose Gnaw attack is Dark-elemental and Poisons your foes.
• You, Get Me Coffee: At the start of the game when Nobody meets Randy, he orders Nobody to get a caramel macchiato, venti, extra shot, half-skim milk, half mountain goat milk, 2 percent foam. After the fourth Calamity Dungeon, Nobody (who is the cursed form of Nostramagus, Randy's mentor) can turn it around on him by saying "Coffee, black."

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