The story is loosely based on the various Hungarian and other Central European myths. It takes place in a realm of Operencia, which is plunged in a crisis of succession after the unquestionably respected King Attila has died. Forces of the Underworld, desperate for revenge after Attila had cut their previous invasion short decades ago, have chosen to pay back by kidnapping the Sun King Napkirály.
A little earlier on, a simple player-generated farmer becomes haunted by a dream of a white stag leading them to a castle under the lake. Their father realizes this to be a sign from the legendary Csodaszarvas, and blesses them on their way to the Castle of Anna, which had sunk due to a terrible curse. They emerge from it right as the Underworld invasion occurred, and the realm was plunged into darkness. Now, it's up to them and the companions they find on their way to free the Sun King and beat back the invasion.
Tropes present in Operencia: The Stolen Sun:
- Actually Four Mooks: One enemy on-map will invariably represent two to five in battle. Then again, the game is a "blobber", so your party is essentially the same thing from the enemies' perspective.
- All Deaths Final: There's an option for an "Ironman" playthrough, where this is true.
- Anti-Grinding: The enemies will not respawn at all, thus preventing you from grinding for XP.
- Apocalyptic Log: You'll regularly find notes like this. In the Great Forest's cave where you defeat a troll named Ogli, for instance, you'll learn of an unfortunate son who chose to bury treasure right next to that cave, before he stumbled upon the troll and the latter broke his legs to save him for dinner. He had just enough time to write this in a note for his father before Ogli finished him off.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: There are six available recruits in the game, but you are limited to taking three of them into battle alongside your hero.
- A Taste of Power: The prologue where you play as a warrior as mighty as Attila is this, as you'll then begin the game as a humble farmer.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: Played very straight for King Attila, who personally sets out to stop the dragonking invasion and kill their dragon leader with only his queen (and a thaltos they meet on the way) - and succeeds.
- Bag of Holding: The old merchant named Elia has a literal one, which surprises the party at first.
- Bait-and-Switch Boss: When you enter the Castle of Anna, you'll be hearing the roar of a dragon at some points, and even the characters assume he'll be the boss. Instead, when you work the mechanism to move to the throne room, this also frees the dragon there, and forces King Brek to kill him. He's pissed off, as that dragon has literally been the only other living thing in his room for the past twenty years, and he attacks you to avenge him.
- Battle Couple: In the prologue, King Attila fights alongside his wife Rekka.
- Because Destiny Says So: At the end of the Great Forest, you'll meet an archer named Sebastian who had his destiny told by Goncol (the same taltos who fought alongside Attila in the prologue): that he is to locate Sword of Attila many years later, and deliver it to The Chosen One when the time is nigh for a great battle of light against darkness.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Great Forest is full of Giant Bugs and Giant Spiders.
- Bilingual Bonus: "Operencia" is Hungarian for "Legendary land", and nearly all the myths and fairy tales in that language use it to describe their setting.
- Breath Weapon: As expected, the various dragonkin will breathe fire, targeting the entire party in what looks like the entire screen getting set ablaze.
- Broken Bridge: One literally separates the Great Forest area from the rest. The only ones who can fix it are the Guild of Stone Masons. Unluckily, their fortress is also infested with the undead (due to the curse they brought upon themselves), and you have to help Kela, the only survivor, recover her enchanted hammer, Stoneheart, that would quickly fix the bridge.
- The Casanova: A party conversation about Attila underneath the Great Forest mentions "numerous volumes written on his copulations with many women" after the death of his wife Queen Reka, as opposed to the dearth of knowledge about their relationship while it lasted.
- Chainsaw Good: Copper Soldiers fight with the buzzsaw blades attached to their arms.
- Concussion Frags: There are small explosives you can deploy during combat that function in this manner.
- Counter-Attack: Every character and enemy has a counter-attack chance, with bosses often being practically guaranteed to inflict one.
- Critical Existence Failure: Having health bar reduced to almost nothing doesn't change a thing for either the player's party or the enemies.
- Critical Hit: Part of the combat system, with a stat for critical chance and another for the actual critical damage.
- Deadpan Snarker: While your main character is also written as quite a snarker, Joska is the one most consistently sarcastic about the obstacles you encounter.
- When your group discusses Reka's tomb and the extra coffins there, he suggests that King Attila must have placed them because he anticipated their arrival and that they'll be tearing through vicious fungi on their way. He then quips that he would rather be buried in the first free coffin they found, as it has the most room.
- The narrator also notes this. The transition cutscene between The Great Forest and the next area starts with "After many miles of complaints from Joska, they reached a bridge."
- Decoy Protagonist: You start out the game as King Attila, as he reaches the lair of the great three-headed dragon Thaid. This acts as a tutorial, and happens decades before the events of the main game. In the present time, it has become a myth, but locating Sword of Attila is one of the key things you need to achieve on your journey.
- Dem Bones: Skeletons are a recurring enemy in the early locales.
- One battle in the Tomb of Reka is against an archer, a shield warrior, a two-hander and a mage, who were once all companions of Sebastian, the old archer who joined you a little earlier. He calls all of them by name and tries to reason with them, but this predictably fails, as there's no longer a soul left in them.
- Dishing Out Dirt: There are earth-based attacks like the "Falling Rocks" skill.
- Dual Wielding: Dragonkin Berserkers fight with a spear and a cleaver.
- Epic Flail: All the Zoldek fight with these, with King Brek having a particularly large one.
- Enemy Summoner: Garanboncias Wizards are the first ones you encounter in the prologue. Rat shamans and gryphons are the other notable summoners in the main game.
- All of the summons will also disappear as soon as you defeat their master. Sometimes, they don't even wait that long: the prologue encounter with a Garanboncias Wizard humorously begins with him summoning a succubus, only for her to promptly flee once she takes a look at your group.
- Spawner enemies, however, will have the creatures they create persist after their death.
- Everything Fades: The bodies of the defeated enemies are highlighted in yellow and fade out from the battlefield in a few seconds.
- Evil Laugh: Skull Sentries do this laugh while buffing themselves.
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: The traditional elemental triad is in play here, too.
- Flaming Skulls: The Skull Sentries in Reka's tomb. While they are fully wreathed in flames like most examples, they still have enough fire on the inside to be completely immune to flame attacks.
- Flunky Boss: Queen Reka's ghost starts off the battle by summoning two named skeleton warriors.
- Frog Men: The first-level is a half-sunken Castle of Anna, which is mainly inhabited by the so-called Zoldek, which have purely frog bodies but very stout humanoid limbs. A giant one, King Brek, acts as the place's boss.
- A story told by Joska reveals that the ones in that castle were all human warriors once, but then they got this form due to the same curse that flooded the castle - all due to their King's treachery, after he decided to intentionally provoke a curse his brother Vakar placed on the castle by kidnapping his wives. This was after he was told the tears of a young maiden will submerge the whole place underwater.
- Giant Spider: A frequent enemy in the Great Forest. They like to act as ranged support to the melee-only Giant Bugs by spitting web at the party. If their allies (even fellow spiders) become heavily wounded, however, they can also straight-up eat them in order to heal and become much larger and stronger, often changing in color as well.
- Golem: Ape-like Stone Golems are the tough but unrefined elite enemies of the Deva Fortress.
- Copper Soldiers are automatons, but can count as a smaller version of these.
- The Good King: Attila is remembered as this, mostly for being the one leader strong enough to stop an Underworld invasion single-handed.
- Gratuitous Latin: The mushrooms fought in the caves beneath the Great Forest all have Latin names, like "Amanita Muscaria", "Mycena Corticola" and "Lactarius Indigo".
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: One of the first things you do in the prologue is put out a burning tree trunk blocking the path with a bucket of water, which causes its midsection to crumble and both tree halves to slide off, making a pretty loud sound. However, none of this alerts the two Dragonkin Elite Berserkers, who continue to have their back turned to the tree, thus letting Attila and Rekka ambush them.
- Healing Checkpoint: Played straight on a higher "Battle-Hardened" difficulty, where campfires are the only place where you can save, but keep their ability to fully restore party's health and energy if you light a fire.
- Human Pincushion: Dragonkin Berserker models always have an arrow or two poking out of their shoulders, which doesn't bother them at all.
- Human Sacrifice: Deva Fortress was built on a cursed site, so that anything initially constructed there collapsed the next day. Mason guild leader, Boldizsar, eventually chose to overcome it by sacrificing the next person who stepped foot on this place. However, the invasion of the Underworld also released the victim, and she got her revenge on all but Boldizsar, who escaped long ago and Kela, who ends up joining your group.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Giant Spiders can eat heavily wounded allies to instantly gain plenty of extra health and become much larger.
- An Ice Person:
- Garaboncias Wizards like to cast ice spells. They even have the ability to throw ice crystals as their Counter-Attack. However, they are not resistant to cold themselves.
- Your talti also have access to cold spells like Blizzard, which damages and stuns everyone in the enemy group.
- Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Present in the various dungeons you encounter.
- Item Crafting: There's a potion-brewing mechanic.
- Jack of All Trades: The characters with a Sea of Operencia origin get +2 to all stats and an extra skill slot at level 12, but no truly unique perks or affinities.
- King Mook: King Brek is the boss of the Castle of Anna and the largest one of the Zoldek forces. Ironically, his size may be a boon in battle, but is also part of a curse, as he's become too large to leave his throne room.
- Leaked Experience: The Exp your party gains in combat will be shared with the members who were left out.
- Mana Drain: Copper Soldiers will drain energy from the entire party once their health goes below halfway point.
- Mana Meter: It's called energy here, but the meaning is the same.
- Mana Shield: The Energy Shield skill. You first see this amongst Reka's skills in the prologue, but there's no real need to use it then. Then, when you battle her undead apparition in her tomb, she begins the battle with that shield already around her.
- Mook Medic: There are quite a few enemy healers. Interestingly, the first one you encounter is an unnotable mushroom named Mycena Corticola.
- Multiple-Choice Past: When creating the main character, you can choose their origin from four options: Bergengocia, Round Forest, Glass Mountain and the Sea of Operencia. Each origin gives different bonuses, and also unique perks, like Round Forest' denizens affinity for magic and a chance to ignore elemental damage, or Bergengocians 10% chance to revive at the end of the round after getting KO-ed.
- Multishot: Archers' Falcon Strike skill fires three arrows at once.
- Non-Human Undead: There are skeletons of rators - child-sized humanoid rats.
- Off with His Head!: After you defeat Thaid in battle, Prologue ends with a cutscene of Attila cutting all three of his heads off.
- Our Zombies Are Different: They are called Walkers here, and will spawn the likes of themselves. They are also encountered well after you have fought dozens of skeletons. Joska even comments on this the first time you combat them in Deva Fortress.Joska: I am so used to fighting skeletons now. Their rotting flesh makes these fellows so much more personable.
- Oxygen Meter: Something you need to keep track of in the flooded areas.
- Power Floats: Played straight with the wraiths and other such entities. A wizard boss named Boldizsar floats during his battle.
- Playing with Fire: Several spells fall into this category. Skull Sentries will spit fireballs at your group.
- Pre-existing Encounters: Enemies all travel on the same map as you are. Attacking them from behind grants you a surprise attack turn, but they get to do the same if they manage to sneak up on you.
- Shield-Bearing Mook:
- Skeleton Warriors, Dragonkin Warriors, Undead Rators, etc. carry shields with their swords and spears, giving them a higher chance of blocking attacks. Skeleton Warriors also like to bang on their shield in their idle animation.
- Amanita Muscaria mushrooms are a unique example, because the caps on their heads are so thick that they act as a shield, and they capitalize on that by keeping their head "bowed" during the battle, so that the cap will cover the entirety of their body and block attacks.
- Shock and Awe:
- There are electrical spells like Spark and Lighting Spark, which often have a chance to stun the target, and a chance to jump to a neighbouring enemy.
- There are electric enemies too, like the Electro Gomba mushrooms. Notably, they are the only mushrooms that are vulnerable to poison, rather than resistant, like all the others.
- Shoot the Medic First: Played straight, due to the high power of healing spells used by the hostile spellcasters.
- Skull for a Head: Garaboncias Wizard enemies have bodies encased in black leather and goat-like skulls with Glowing Eyes.
- Spikes of Doom: There are spike traps in the dungeons.
- Squishy Wizard: Played absolutely straight with the mages, to offset their spells being completely unblockable.
- Super Spit: Zoldek Rangers can spit poison. Giant Spiders spit silk. Mycena Corticola and Lactarius Indigo mushrooms also have a similar-looking spit attack.
- Suspiciously Cracked Wall:
- False/damaged walls are frequently present, and sometimes discovering them is necessary to advance through the dungeon.
- There are suspicious patches of ground, which you can dig up to find buried treasure once you get a shovel.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Thaid, the dragon fought by Attila in the prologue, states that other dragonkin have tried to arrive peacefully from the Underworld to claim their place under the Sun, only for humans to seek to slay them all anyway. Thus, he decided he might as well strike first and avoid any niceties in the first place.Attila: Dragons arrive in Operencia with nothing but fury and malice. You are no different.
Thaid: You are wrong, human, because I AM different. I am the first to enter this realm with nothing but fury... and malice. It is the only way.
Reka: Can we kill him now?
Attila: Yes. - Trauma Inn: If you reach a campsite and have enough wood to light a fire, the health and energy of everyone in your party will be instantly healed.
- Tree Top Town: The World Tree level is entirely set amongst its huge branches.
- Unblockable Attack: Spells always hit and cannot be parried like melee attacks or blocked or evaded like ranged and melee attacks. However, this is compensated by their elemental alignments, meaning that many creatures will resist particular spell types instead.
- Universal Poison: Quite a few enemies have poisonous attacks that all work the same way. The first companion, Joska, also starts out with poison and sleep-inflicting Valeriana's Kiss. However, the poison your characters apply is definitely not universal when it comes to the enemies, as many are either completely immune (undead and mechanical enemies), or resistant, like giant insects and mushrooms.
- Was Once a Man: All the Zoldek in the castle were
- Weapons of Their Trade: Kela fights with a hammer, as befits a stone mason.
- We Have Reserves: When Attila and Rekka first stumble upon the dragonkin and he says that "This gate spawns creatures Operencia has never seen", one of the dragonkin "reassures" him with "Don't worry human. There are many more to come!"
- You All Look Familiar: Averted for the Giant Bugs and Giant Spiders in the Great Forest, who come in a range of colorings. Same also goes for the Walker undead. Most other enemies, however, have only one appearance per type.
