Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines is an Eastern RPG for the Play Station Vita developed by Alfa System, and released in the U.S. and Europe on March 2015.
The game starts in 12th century Japan, where a number of sacred artifacts have been stolen, and a certain sorcerer convinced the emperor that the only way to appease the gods was to put the clan responsible for guarding the artifacts to death. Namely, your clan.
Of course, the gods call shenanigans on this and resurrect your clan. The problem is that your clan was not only put to death, but they were also cursed twofold: not only will the resurrected clan live out their entire lifespan in two years, but they can no longer reproduce with mortals.
Thus, the game is a combination family management simulation and dungeon crawler, where you must go out and slay demons to earn enough devotion to convince the gods to produce offspring with your clan members.
Your ultimate goal is to defeat the sorcerer responsible for your clan's execution and lift the curses he has put upon you.
Oreshika provides examples of the following tropes:
- Anachronism Stew: The game takes place in the Heian Period, but there's a gunner class, and Kochin's scribbles in her diary are clearly drawn with crayons. There's also modern kitty litter in The Garden of Purr-fection. Considering this is a game with a weasel girl about a cursed clan breeding with gods,
it's best not to get too worked up about these. - Ancestral Weapon: You can create heirloom weapons and armors that lack power at first but increase in power as time goes on. This can result in a new member of the clan receiving extremely powerful weapons early on in their lives. If you have more than one, it will be divided amongst family members.
- Attack Animal: Kochin takes on her weasel form during combat and will occasionally run up to enemies and hit them, or use a spell. The former barely hurts enemies later on, while the latter tends to miss.
- Big Bad: Abe no Seimei, the sorcerer who convinced the emperor to have your clan put to death and the one who cursed you.
- Bodyguard Crush: Rikimaru slowly makes it clear over the course of the game that he is jealous of your clan's ability to quickly grow in power, as he wishes to have the power to protect Princess Kazu.
- Call-Back: When Kitsuto resurrects your party, he comments on your curse with "The Classics are the Best". Seeing as he cursed the clan from the first game with the exact same thing...
- The Clan: You play as one that has been cursed by Abe no Seimei.
- Combat Hand Fan: The dancer class uses this, but as you would expect a fan doesn't do much damage. It makes up for this by being able to hit rows of enemies at once.
- Cursed with Awesome: Despite the curse severely limiting the lifespan of those stuck with it, and making them unable to procreate normally, it causes the children born with it to age with extreme speed allowing new more powerful family lines within a few decades. Also, through forcing those with the curse to mate with gods, it effectively creates a family of demigods.
- Dance Battler: The dancer class, which is weaker than most classes but excels in group damage and magic.
- Defeat Means Friendship: When you defeat one of Abe no Seimei's servants, they join back up with Nueko as her Shikigami.
- Divine Parentage: Most of your clan will have a divine parent, due to one of the curses that prevents your clan from creating children with anyone besides gods or the members of the clan scattered across the land.
- Everything's Better with Samurai: The fencer class, a good balance of offense and defense.
- Evil Is Petty: Part of Abe No Seimei's motivation is apparently to cause pain and suffering throughout your family lineage, because his mother doesn't remember him, potentially on purpose.
- Food God: Mochinohana is a god of, well, mochi. He looks kinda like a big marshmallow.
- Foreign Language Title: Oreshika, short for Ore no Shikabane wo Koete Yuke, which roughly translates to Over My Dead Body.
- Gem Tissue: Not in the sequel but in the Playstation original, the curse is symbolized by a gem on every member of the clan's forehead.
- Gender Is No Object: Not only is gender not an object, neither is age. You can choose whichever clan member you want as a successor when the head of your clan dies, regardless of their gender or age. Gender also doesn't really affect anything other than the gods you can breed with.
- Guardian Entity: When a certain member of your clan dies, they can potentially become a Ujigami, effectively becoming a guardian spirit in heaven. The gods themselves can also become this if given presents from shrines or simply to help their offspring.
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: Due to the instruments of Festivity being stolen, the gods have far fewer prayers and as such have become weaker.
- G-Rated Sex: All that's seen during the Rite of Divine Union is the chosen clan member and god staring lovingly into each other's eyes while Kochin does a ceremonial dance.
- The Gunslinger: The Gunner class specializes in long range combat using firearms. They have two sub-types, one using bullets to do high damage to targets of their choice and the other using shells, doing area attack damage to the targeted enemy's row and column
- Have You Seen My God?: At one point, some of the gods descend from heaven and go missing and must be fought in some of the dungeons. Some are trapped in certain items, require you to kill a certain amount of enemies to break a curse, fight you to train with you, or for their own reasons.
- Healing Factor: Abe no Seimei cannot be injured in any way he can't recover from besides a spot on his chest. His plot involves destroying the person who could hurt him in such a way.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: Abe no Seimei
is the sorcerer responsible for your curse. - Hopeless Boss Fight: When facing Ushiomaru, Abe no Seimei's giant crab, he infinitely respawns it, making it smarter to just run. However, the game doesn't make it very clear if it's possible to win or if Abe no Seimei is just taunting you.
- Legendary Carp: Dodoro Shingen is a carp deity with fairly decent affinities.
- Lightning Bruiser: Martial artists hit hard and move fast, allowing for quick beatdowns.
- Little Bit Beastly:
- Kochin is actually a weasel turned human by Kitsuto. Her human form only keeps her ears and tail.
- Some of the gods have animal features like fox or rabbit ears. If you have a kid with them, there's a chance they will have some of their parent's features.
- Luke, You Are My Father: Abe no Seimei is Nueko's son.
- Marked to Die: Snake-like marks will appear on a clan member's face when they have a few months left to live. As death cones closer the snakes will seem to crawl further along the face until two touch, and death occurs.
- Market-Based Title: The game is known in Japan as Ore no Shikabane wo Koete Yuke 2. This title has a perfectly valid English translation: "Over My Dead Body 2", but the new name fits the tone of the game a bit better.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Clan members will offer three options for what they think their best move is in battle. If you go against their suggestions too many times, and if the clan hasn't had enough victories, they will leave the clan due to your leadership.
- Night Parade of One Hundred Demons: The "Feast of All Demons" is an event that happens once every in-game year, filled with many youkai that often drop good rewards. In order to advance the plot, you need to attend the event and defeat the boss there.
- Old Master: Any clan member you create has the potential to be this. Since characters quickly lose speed, stamina, and strength as they age, their last few years are usually best spent teaching younger clan members to boost their mind, body, and personality stats. It also allows them to learn new spells and secret arts.
- Older and Wiser: Clan members close to death make better teachers than fighters, and so should be left in the house to teach the next generation.
- Orphaned Etymology: The localization adds a few of these unintentionally, such as use of the idiom "bread and butter" (the game takes place hundreds of years before bread was introduced to Japan, the original Japanese line referenced rice).
- Rasputinian Death: Putting your entire clan to death is bad enough, but you were further cursed to have extremely short lifespans and be unable to reproduce with other humans. The gods are fortunately willing to mate with your clan to keep it going, but it seems your enemies wanted you really, really, really dead.
- Sealed Good in a Can: By beating a certain number of enemies or using a specific weapon, you can release gods trapped in items like swords and bows.
- Secret Art: Certain characters can create their own secret arts which can only be passed on to their own offspring who they share a weapon class with.
- Squishy Wizard: The Dancer class is great with magical and physical crowd control, but can't take too many direct blows.
- Stronger with Age: Subverted, unlike some games where a character might fight well until death, as the markings on your clan members' faces signify a character's age they start to lose vitality and become less combat savvy.
- Supernatural Martial Arts: The fighter class is still well capable of using magic while laying down a smackdown.
- Top God: Hiruko the ruler of the heavens. She has some interest in your clan's success, most likely because it would help to retire the Instruments of Festivity.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Wreckers hit like a truck, them effective against single opponents, but tend to be lacking in magical skills.
- Uplifted Animal: Kitsuto heals an injured weasel and turns her mostly human, teaching her how to speak and cook.
- Weak, but Skilled: Dancers hit like how you would think someone with a fan would hit, but have better magical prowess, and hit multiple opponents at once.
- We Are as Mayflies: Your clan in a nutshell.
- The Worsening Curse Mark: A pair of snake-like markings appear on a clan member's face as they age, and once they reach the top, that character immediately dies.
