Video Game / Save the Light

Steven Universe: Save the Light is the sequel to the Steven Universe mobile game Attack the Light, taking place during the show's fourth season.

Steven and Connie are having fun on Beach City one day when they see some Light Constructs invading it. They ask Greg on what's going on, but Hessonite suddenly arrives and kidnaps Light Steven, the Light Prism whom Steven befriended in Attack the Light. With Greg deciding to go on one of Steven's adventures for once, it's up to the Crystal Gems to save Steven's new friend!

Save the Light was released on October 31st, 2017 for PlayStation 4 and November 3rd, 2017 for Xbox One. On July 27th, 2018, it was announced for Steam, and was released on August 13, 2018. Shortly after that, a Nintendo Switch version was released on October 30th, 2018, along with a retail version for all three consoles that bundled it with OK K.O.! Let's Play Heroes in 2019.

In September 2019, another sequel titled Unleash the Light was unveiled by Apple as part of their Apple Arcade service for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and tvOS, and was released on November 27th, 2019.

---

Save the Tropes!

• Action Commands: Most abilities require an input, usually timed, to be used or defended against effectively. Doing either with perfect timing (as indicated by the star turning purple) increases the Star Gauge, and can trigger any number of unlockable abilities.
• Advertised Extra: Squaridot has about five minutes total of screen time, in a 10+ hour game.
• After-Combat Recovery: Party members unconscious when battle ends recover with a small amount of Harmony.
• Anti-Air: Some attacks such as Pearl's Spear Throw and Peridot's Metal Powers (where she hurls her tablet at her foes) are capable of hitting flying enemies.
• Anti-Armor: Besides Garnet's Rocket Punch from the first game, which has her Ground Punch's shield-breaking effect since Amethyst lost her shield-breaking move following her retirement of Purple Puma, Opal's Super Charge Shot breaks shields and lowers the enemy's defense. Pearl's Fireball attack can also be upgraded to break shields and also inflict burns, while Connie's sword can be upgraded to have the same effects as Garnet's Rocket Punch.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The limit for the game's currency from the first installment is removed, thus allowing you to carry as much money as you need from the beginning.
  • Attack availability is no longer dependent on how much HP you have, so you're free to use your stronger attacks at low health as long as you have enough Star Points.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Your in-game party is Steven and three others. This limit clearly doesn't exist in-story, as one cutscene has the entire party show up in the middle of a dungeon, only to be forcibly split into two teams to rescue Steven: Connie and Peridot on one side of the dungeon, and Greg, Amethyst and Pearl on the other. Garnet is also split into Ruby and Sapphire, but they each serve as non-playable dungeon guides for the two teams.
• The Artifact: In Attack the Light, Steven could project his bubble around other people, even though he couldn't in the series, because he was a purely Support Party Member that enemies never attacked. Steven is a full party member now, but his bubble works the same way because it's a very useful move no wants him to lose.
• Artistic License – Chemistry: One level has pieces of tungsten as Plot Coupons, which are green and described as a rare earth metal. In real life, tungsten is gray and not a rare earth metal.
• Auto-Revive:
  • Everyone on your team comes back from being knocked out as soon as a displayed timer goes out, though with low health.
  • Steven and Amethyst both can get abilities that give them a chance of instantly reviving after a KO that starts at 50% but gets less likely the more its used in battle. The descriptions imply Steven is keeping himself up through Heroic Resolve, while Amethyst was just Playing Possum as a joke.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The Fusions look great and their attacks are fairly powerful, but those attacks cost a lot of Star Points, and you lose access to the wider variety of abilities of the individual Gems.
• Back Stab:
  • Shield Bearing Mooks are only protected from one side, as are enemies with spikes that hit melee attackers.
  • One of Pearl's abilities gives 50% extra damage if she attacks from the back.
• Bag of Sharing: Like in the previous game, everyone uses the same items from Steven's Cheeseburger Backpack. This is subverted when the team is forcibly split in the Pyramid Temple: Connie picks up the Backpack, allowing her and Peridot to use it, while Greg, Amethyst, and Pearl are forced to go without items, but they can still collect them for later when the whole team reunites.
• Bittersweet Ending: The best ending is mostly happy, though the Crystal Gems were unable to persuade Squaridot over to their side and she is poofed for now, and Hessonite teleports to places unknown to discover if she is truly perfect, likely not to be seen again by Homeworld or the Crystal Gems until she finds her answer.
• Bonus Dungeon: "Secret Hoozywhatzits" are used to unlock doors leading to bonus areas full of stronger enemies. When entering them for the first time, one of your party members warns you of the increased difficulty inside them, advising you to come back when you're stronger.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Steven's basic Shield Bash is the only attack that cost just 1 Star Point, hurts every enemy between him and his target, and does quite a lot of Knockback. This makes it good for finishing off a weakened enemy, hitting many clustered-together enemies, and pushing them off a ledge for an instant KO.
  • Greg's Healing Jam and Pow Jam are often rendered ineffectual because of bad positioning, but he can always fall back on Star Jam to generate Star Points for the rest of the team (there's no range issues since the Star Gauge isn't tied to any one characters).
• Boss-Only Level: Hessonite's Warship consists only of a short hallway leading to an elevator that takes you to the final boss room. The ship would later be greatly expanded upon in Unleash the Light.
• Call-Back: Special doors are engraved with a picture of a figure with three pairs of arms and a head with three triangles. This figure was the statue where you could buy items from in the previous game.
• Can't Drop the Hero: Steven can't be removed from the party, keeping with how the show stays fixed to his point of view. There is, however, one segment where the rest of the part is separated from him. Half of it spent as Connie and Peridot, the other with Amethyst, Pearl, and Greg. Steven still somehow sees all of this, however.
• Cave Behind the Falls: There are two secret rooms behind the waterfalls in "Waterfall Way", and Steven will comment on them if you discover them.
• Challenge Run: The Crying Breakfast Friends (CBF) Badge halves the entire team's stats. The description even says that it should be worn "when you want a BIG challenge!"
• Character Exaggeration: In the show, Onion sometimes showed up hiding in odd places. For the sake of acting as the game's merchant, this trait is taken to a ridiculously impossible extremes, with Onion constantly showing up in the Crystal Gems' path even on other continents.
• Charged Attack: Connie's "Study" ability gives her next attack a considerable power boost for just a single Star Point, which can be stacked by using it multiple times before attacking. However, it has a lengthy charge time and will be interrupted if she takes any damage (though this will only prevent her from getting another stack, not remove ones she's already built up). It can be upgraded to also add a Status Buff to Defense and/or Luck, or even share all effects with nearby allies ("Study Group").
• Combatant Cooldown System: Unlike the Turn-Based Combat in Attack the Light, time passes between moves, though your party still use a shared pool of Star Points (Action Points) that regenerates five-at-a-time whenever the Star Gauge fills (both over time and from doing perfectly-timed Action Commands). Some enemies move around between turns (needing to get within range to attack), some abilities have an interruptible charge time before they take effect, and some others (most notably Greg's songs) have their effects take place over time separate from regular turns. Item use remains separate from Star Points, with each item preventing you from using any another for a set time. Also unlike the previous game, enemy turn frequency works more like the player party, where reducing the enemies' numbers will make the remaining ones attack more frequently to compensate.
• Combat Exclusive Healing: Steven's Encourage and Greg's Heal Jam are only usable in battle. Healing items are quite generous, so this isn't too much of an issue.
• Continuity Nod:
  • There's a new machine at Funland called "Boltron", who's stated to be the son of Zoltron, and is definitely not just the same Zoltron machine with a B slapped over the Z.
  • Hessonite is very likely Centipeetle's superior◊ as seen in her drawings from "Monster Reunion". In-game, she comments that her troops had to flee Earth "very quickly". Later episodes explicitly say that Centipeetle's commander was indeed a Hessonite, though whether it's the same Hessonite as the one in the game is not stated.
  • Garnet's stationary jump animation has the same pose as when she re-fused in "Jailbreak".
  • When you first get to the Strawberry Battlefield, Steven points out they've been there a lot, referencing both it's many appearances in the series and being a level in Attack the Light.
  • The Strawberry Battlefield is littered with bits of the Pyramid Temple that exploded in "Serious Steven".
  • After his encounter there in "Bismuth", Steven is initially uncomfortable going into Bismuth's forge.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Lava is dangerous only when party members fall into it, even Garnet, who is lavaproof in the original show, unless she's wearing the Fireproof Badge or feeling the immunity effects from Feelawesome Tea or the Immunity Badge.
• Critical Status Buff: The Berserker Badge gives the wearer an attack buff when at 15% HP or lower while its Lucky version instead guarantees all of their attacks to be Lucky Hits.
• Crutch Character: Gem fusions are available as Limit Breaks as soon as you get the relevant characters, letting you switch out two party members for a fusion for the rest of the battle. The raw power of their few moves at first make up for losing their components' larger move pool, but are stagnant in comparison to the regular party, who get more advanced abilities and synergies later on.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: The first time the Crystal Gems attempt to fight Hessonite, she poofs Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl within the span of five seconds.
• Defend Command: Connie's Protect has her guard an ally and automatically counter enemies for them for a short time. During this, she can still use her other moves without interrupting her protective stance.
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • Waiting for perfect blocks risks failing to defend at all, but builds free Star Gauge and many other bonuses from unlockable abilities. In particular, "Can't Stop the Rock" keeps Greg's songs from being interrupted, negating his biggest weakness if you can perfect block consistently.
  • Connie's Combination Attacks with Pearl and Garnet both present extremely long attack-chains with probably the hardest attack timing in the game. However, if you can make the timing, you're rewarded with absolutely ludicrous damage.
• Diminishing Returns for Balance: The skill point costs for raising Attack, Defense, and Luck increase after getting one-third and two-thirds of the way to the Cap. Later levels give more skill points to compensate, effectively preventing you from getting especially high stats (and the ability they unlock) until higher levels.
• Door to Before:
  • After clearing "Hall to the Heart", the stairs past the final treasure room leads back to outside Bismuth's Forge. However, due to the steep ledges, it's a one-way trip back down, so you have to take the Warp Pad and go through "Hall to the Heart" again to go back up.
  • "Volcanic Venture" has two Warp Pads: one at the beginning and one at the end of a single path full of strong enemies.
• Doppleganger Attack: Pearl can summon Holo-Pearl to attack one enemy, causing Damage Over Time for a while. You can have several out at once, attacking multiple or the same target. The "Synchronize" ability causes it to do an extra attack when Pearl uses her basic spear attack on the same target.
• Downer Ending: After the final battle, if the Prism chooses to go back to Hessonite, she teleports away to conquer more worlds with it, with the Crystal Gems lampshading how bad it is and Steven hoping that the Prism will one day save itself.
• Draw Aggro: Garnet's Taunt makes her redirect enemy attacks towards her.
• Empty Room Psych: The Hall to the Heart looks like it's heading to a dramatic boss battle at the end, inside a giant room with lava flowing down the back wall, but... no, it's just a big empty room, with a few normal enemies no more difficult than the ones you fought to get there (and only the first time; in subsequent visits, the room is entirely empty).
• Exposed to the Elements: Upon returning to The Great North, this trope naturally applies to all human characters (and unlike the last time, neither Connie nor Steven are in winter wear).
• Evil Counterpart:
  • Squaridot to the Crystal Gem Peridot. She's basically the exact same type of egotist Peridot was/is, but with none of the character development she had after getting trapped on Earth.
  • Hessonite is the non-fused Homeworld version of Garnet.
• Evolving Title Screen: Before the game starts, only Steven is present on the title screen. All the other playable characters gradually join him as they're recruited.
• Final-Exam Boss: The Light Warrior has a reflectable ball like Squaridot, a rain of projectiles like the cannon enemy, and, fittingly, conversational choices like Steven has been making throughout the game.
• Friendly Fireproof: Peridot's allies won't be hurt by her landmines, but they'll still activate them if they run over them. Garnet's Quake also doesn't hurt allies within range.
• Fun with Acronyms: One of the contraptions that Peridot can build is called a Robotic Pulse Generator, or an RPG.
• Game-Breaking Bug: The game has been criticized for its large amount of bugs, many of which can freeze the game and require you to quit to the menu and reload. Most of them relate to characters getting stuck or falling through level geometry in or out of battle. Each update fixed a significant number of bugs, but those updates petered out after a while with a handful of bugs remaining.
• Giver of Lame Names: Steven comes up with one of four silly names for one of the dungeons (The Secret Temple of Secrets, the Danger Dungeon, the Pyramid O' Peril, or the Spooky Basement) and the bosses of Beach City Woods (Insecti-saw, The Bladeinator, Furnace Face, or Dave) and the Gem Battlefield (the Duke of Strawberries, Excalicrush, Mace McGillcuddy, or Spikey McSpikeball).
• Green Hill Zone: You revisit the Strawberry Battlefield because Hessonite is bringing the Light Prism to places it fought, which oddly has a bunch of pits full of Spikes of Doom. It also has steel cubes Peridot moves around with her metal powers.
• Hybrid Power: Some badges can only be equipped by either humans or Gems, but Steven can use both.
• In-Character Let's Play: Cartoon Network uploaded short YouTube videos of Steven Universe characters playing Save the Light: Peridot, Pearl and Amethyst, and even Onion.
• Interface Spoiler: You first to go Bismuth's forge early on, giving you a way to upgrade your equipment. However, the low completion percentages on the map for getting upgrades is a quick giveaway that there's a secret entrance to a full dungeon.
• Ironic Name: For all that Hessonite believes herself to be "perfect", the gem's name comes from the Ancient Greek word "hesson", which means "inferior", due to hessonite gems having lower hardness and density than most other garnet types.
• Interquel: The first version of the game came out partway into the show's fifth season, but it's clearly set during season four (the developers even pointed this out during demos). It's definitely set after "The New Crystal Gems" (Peridot calls Connie and herself by that name) and before "Doug Out" (Onion and Lars are still seen around Beach City). No one discusses following Hessonite's ship with the Roaming Eye, nor is it visible around the barn, strongly implying Navy stealing it back in "Room for Ruby" has already occurred.
• Item Caddy: Steven carries all the party's items in his Cheeseburger Backpack. Though it doesn't take any Star Points to use items, there's a cooldown after any item use, Steven being knocked out or otherwise unable to attack disables item use. When Steven is temporarily separated from the rest of the party, who are also split into two groups, Connie's group can use items because she picks up the backpack, but the others have to do without.
• Last Lousy Point: Besides the possibility of being permanently locked out of achieving 100% Completion in "Hall to the Heart"^note exiting the room without opening the chest will make it disappear, but the enemies needed to be defeated to make it appear won't respawn and "The Labyrinth"^note two out of three sections behind Blue Key gates contribute to the area's completion rate, but there are only two keys and you can't get them back after using them, the Nicer Regen Badge can only be obtained from Boltron. You have to give him Boltron Tokens and hope that he gives you the badge because he might spout random advice or give you another random item instead.
• Last-Second Ending Choice: The three Multiple Endings are obtained by completing the Final Boss and making a choice as Steven. Depending on that choice, it either directly leads to a good (but not perfect) ending, or to a second choice, as the Light Prism, to stay on Earth or rejoin Hessonite. The latter leads to a rather abrupt Downer Ending with mostly silent credits. The former leads to a Golden Ending with an epilogue and credits that Greg sings over.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: The Light Prism is on good terms with Steven after the first game, and took after his form.
• Leaked Experience: Party members waiting back in Steven's house still gain XP even when not battling, but will level up slower than your active members. When you switch them in, they'll have accumulated Skill Points for you to use on stat upgrades.
• Light Is Not Good: Hessonite has bright coloring, a cape with a diamond-like shimmer, and previously owned the Light Prism. Unlike the Light Prism, however, Hessonite is clearly villainous.
• Limit Break: Characters have "relationship meters" that go up by working together in combat, giving kudos after a perfect attack or block, or using the Thoughtful Gift item. When the meter is full, the two characters can perform a combo attack or, in the case of certain combinations of the Crystal Gems, do a Fusion Dance into a single character with more powerful attacks.
• The Lost Woods: The second level is the woods around Beach City, whose trees the Light Creatures are cutting down to fuel the level's boss.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Greg is unique among on the party in that his attacks and heals, instead of being used once when selected, come from periodically released "pulses" with an area of effect. He does later get the ability to release a pulse at any time for 1 AP.
• Mundane Utility: Aside from upgrading your weapons (including Greg's guitar and Peridot's tablet), you can also use Bismuth's forge to repair a pizza cutter for Jenny in a side-quest.
  • If an enemy is preparing an attack & the target stops existing, they'll cancel the attack instead of picking another target. In other words, fusion is a great way to dodge attacks.
• Multiple Endings: There's three different endings. One is bad, one is good but cuts right to the credits, and the last one has a full epilogue. It depends only on choices you make after the final battle.
• Musical Assassin: Greg's combat skills are based around using his guitar music, either to attack (periodically doing damage to nearby enemies), heal and buff his team-mates, or hasten the earning of star points.
• No Item Use for You: You can't access your items if Steven faints in battle. There's also an enemy in the Pyramid Temple that steals the Cheeseburger Backpack from your party, preventing you from using items until you defeat it. Because during this stage, only Connie and Peridot can use the Backpack, Greg, Amethyst, and Pearl are forced to go without items for their leg of the dungeon.
• Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits: Falling into an environmental hazard hurts you (and in the case of cold water and lava, freezes and burns you, respectively) and teleports you back to your last position, but you can't faint outside of battle this way because your HP can't go lower than 1 here.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: As in Attack the Light, full gems are poofed when knocked out in battle. Steven, Connie, and Greg simply collapse from exhaustion. They recover after a set time period or at battle end, either way with 1 HP. (If they're still unconscious/poofed at battle's end, they get no experience points)
• Non-Standard Game Over: In the final battle, if the Light Warrior dies, the game ends even if your group is unharmed. The final boss will, consequently, sometimes wander over to attack it, but you can target it with Steven's Encourage ability, which will heal it (and debuff the final boss's defense if she's next to it at the time). However, Peridot's turrets will also target it, so be careful where you place them, and area attacks will hit it as well, so be careful when you attack the final boss if she's next to it.
• Noob Cave: You start the game in Beach City, which is overrun by Light Creatures. They're not exactly threatening, and the residents of the town think of them as annoyances at worst.
• One-Hit Kill: The second upgrade to Pearl's spear gives it a 25% chance to instantly defeat an enemy with 20% HP or less in a perfect strike. However, it doesn't work on bosses.
• Opt Out:
  • Lion is napping on the hill above the temple, and refuses to wake up when Steven tells him about the adventure. Even if you bribe him with Lion Lickers, he just eats them and goes back to sleep, though doing this enough eventually gives you a badge. Once absolutely needed, he'll make a portal to the The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, but then go back to sleep.
  • Steven invites Lapis to join to the party, but she's not up for it.
• Pass the Popcorn: When Peridot and Squaridot get into a petty argument over who's the "cloddier" one, Amethyst laughs and asks Lapis if she's got any popcorn for that. However, Lapis tells her that she's fresh out of it.
• Party Scattering: In the temple under the Strawberry Battlefield, attempting to attack Hessonite leaves Steven off by himself and the rest of the party split into two groups: Sapphire, Peridot, and Connie in one, Ruby, Greg, Amethyst, and Pearl in the other.
• The Perfectionist: The Prism was a gift from Yellow Diamond to Hessonite for supposedly being perfect, and her defeat at the Crystal Gem's hands causes her to go Walking the Earth to determine if she really is perfect or if she and her superiors were wrong.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • In the "Hall to the Heart"-section of Bismuth's Forge, there is a treasure chest that appears after defeating some enemies. If you fail to open that treasure chest before leaving the area, it will disappear... and the enemies you need to defeat to get it will never appear again.
  • In the Bonus Dungeon of the Pyramid Temple, you have to navigate the labyrinth to get the Blue Keys in order to unlock the gates. However, there are only two keys, and one of the three gates leads to another Warp Pad instead of either a room containing the Grumpy Badge or another containing a Light Steven Fragment and a green switch, the latter which makes the healing pool accessible. Once you retrieve both keys, you can't get them back, so you must pick carefully.
• Pictorial Letter Substitution: The title logo has the hole in the A replaced with a star.
• Point of No Return: After unlocking all the locations on the map (not counting the Bonus Dungeons), Steven can ask Lion to summon a portal to Hessonite's Warship to rescue Light Steven. One of Steven's party members reminds him to make sure he's done everything else he can before he's ready, because once he enters it and takes the elevator in Hessonite's Warship, he won't be able to return to Beach City.
• Power Creep, Power Seep: Many of the casts' abilities have been scaled up or down heavily for the sake of keeping the game playable.
  • Stat-wise, Connie and Greg are comparable to the gems, even though humans are much weaker in the show. This makes some sense for attacking, as both are using weapons (Connie has Rose's Sword, Greg his amplifier), but the small teenaged girl and out-of-shape man taking as many hits as the superpowered aliens is purely a gameplay contrivance.
  • Steven at this point of the series could almost fly, and even the other gems (besides Peridot) could jump tremendous distances. Either one would completely destroy any platforming ability, so their jumps (Double Jump in Steven's case) are much more modest.
• Pre Existing Encounters: You encounter enemies in the overworld, unlike in Attack the Light or Unleash the Light, where they have Random Encounters instead. This gives you a chance to preemptively strike them to initiate the battle, but if they strike you first, you lose 2 Star Points.
• Put on a Bus: In order to explain their absences from the show, game-exclusive characters are written out in various ways (though with the possibility of any of them returning): Squaridot is poofed after the Crystal Gems fail to Heel–Face Turn her. Hessonite goes AWOL to go on a journey of self-discovery. The Prism decides to Walk the Earth.
• Puzzle Boss: If you just attack the Final Boss, Hessonite, directly, you'll mostly just do Scratch Damage (which is workable given the damage values, though it'll be quite tedious). However, Steven has to heal the Light Warrior, who the boss will sometimes attack, to prevent a Non-Standard Game Over. Healing them while they're being attacked will give the boss a special Damage-Increasing Debuff that will let you get some decent hits in. (Downplayed, however, in that Garnet, Peridot, and Connie can inflict this same debuff directly if you have any of them in your party)
• Rare Candy: Besides the Level-Up Charms from the first game, which give a party member (including Steven this time) enough EXP to level up, there are Light Steven Fragments scattered all over the map. They give whoever picks them up a decent amount of EXP.
• Redemption Rejection:
  • Squaridot refuses to listen to Peridot about not having to listen to the Diamonds (in fact, she considers it treason), and ends up attacking the Crystal Gems again before she gets poofed.
  • Hessonite has a Heel Realization after you defeat her, but she refuses to let the Crystal Gems take her prisoner or even join them, though she does go rogue from Homeworld.
• The Reveal:
  • Hessonite wants the Prism back so badly because it was a gift to her from Yellow Diamond. To Hessonite, it’s an award bestowed on her by her superiors for being perfect.
  • The reason she's staying on Earth instead of leaving right after she got the Prism is that the Prism no longer wants to fight thanks to the events of the previous game, so she's taking it to battle sites in order to remind it that it's supposed to be a weapon. Eventually she takes it to Bismuth's forge to upgrade it.
• Ring Out: Sometimes battle is initiated with ledges on the sides of the arena, and several attacks cause knockback. Player characters pushed off these ledges take some damage and sometimes get a status ailment (burn if they fall in lava, cold if they fall in ice water) before teleporting back up to where they started. Enemies die instantly, even if they aren't falling into a pit, which is why a lot of tougher enemies can't be knocked back, but Smoky Quartz's main attack can easily blow them away with gusty winds.
• Rolling Attack:
  • Amethyst's Spin Dash returns from the first game, this time letting her roll into up to three enemies and also reduce their attack stat if you get a star in the minigame. It can be upgraded so that it can also stun them.
  • In the overworld, Steven can roll into enemies to preemptively strike them. He can also squeeze into tight spaces, unearth items buried in mounds, and break open small pots this way.
• Selective Obliviousness: Ronaldo interprets the light monsters as cosplayers.
• Shield Bash: Steven's basic attack is charging at an enemy and bashing them with his shield, doing a little damage and some knockback. This attack will also damage, knock back, and, with the right upgrades, even stun any enemies between Steven and his target. His upgraded attack is the same, but it does significantly more base damage and is always a critical hit, making it one of the strongest attacks in the game (particularly for only 3 AP).
• Shoot the Mage First: There are mage-like enemies that cast spells that attack your party, heal their allies, or boost their stats within range, so they should be defeated first.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Garnet's Future Vision directs the party to the Great North, which is where you find Squaridot. The floor is indeed slippery in many places, and falling in the cold water causes damage to one character and a party-wide slowdown to Star Gauge refill rate.
• Sorting Algorithm of Threatening Geography: The levels progress town->forest->ice cave->field->temple->lava dungeon->spaceship.
• Spikes of Doom: The Strawberry Battlefield and Pyramid Temple have spiked areas that hurt anyone who steps on them. The latter even has them in the battlefield, hurting anyone who runs over them as they move to attack.
• Splash Damage: Amethyst's basic attack range is changed from all enemies on the field to a limited number of enemies within a highlighted area, but it can be upgraded so that those outside of range receive half the damage.
• Stat Overflow: Steven and Greg's Limit Break, Fam Jam, overheals the whole party up to 125% of their max HP. Greg's Healing Jam can also be upgraded to overheal one ally up to 110% of their max HP.
• Status-Buff Dispel: Greg's Cleansing Jam removes the Status Buffs of enemies in addition to curing allies of Status Effects and debuffs.
• Support Party Member: With Steven becoming a full party member (but still keeping his support moves from Attack the Light), Greg takes on this role in the game. He can play Healing Jam to heal his allies within range, Star Jam to speed up the Star Meter, and Cleansing Jam to remove his allies' Status Effects and debuffs and the enemies' Status Buffs. He can also team up with Steven to play Fam Jam, which overheals the party up to 125% of their max HP.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Squaridot, aside from being one for pre-Heel–Face Turn Peridot (who is a selectable party member in the game proper), appears to be this for Eyeball as well, even sharing the same hairstyle and Gem placement. This is likely to keep the games relatively standalone while still being part of the overall narrative.
• Temple of Doom: Turns out the Pyramid Temple had an enormous basement that was left unharmed from its destruction. The party go through it in two halves.
• Tennis Boss:
  • During the fight with Squaridot, successfully blocking her laser blast will bounce it back towards her, forcing her to reflect it back. Keep it up for long enough, and the blast will hit her, doing some damage and angering her into coming down to taunt your party (which leaves her open to attack). When her health gets low, Squaridot will start to bounce the blast back at random party members other than just at her original target.
  • The mechanic returns for the penultimate fight against the Light Warrior, though it just does damage to it rather than making it more vulnerable.
• The Turret Master: Peridot's "Pericannon" ability lets her construct a turret that automatically attacks any enemies who get too close. Her Combination Attack with Pearl is the "Pearl-fect Pericannon", which constructs a bigger and much more powerful one. Another special ability, "Molten Core" energizes her devices (turrets and otherwise) so they do much more damage for a while.
• Undying Loyalty: It turns out that Bismuth created a statue of Rose in secret, presumably as a surprise gift to her.
  Bismuth's inscription: To our fearless leader. You gave us everything. You made us who we are. I would do anything for your cause. I would do anything for you.
• The Unseen: Citrine guards are stationed on Hessonite’s warship, though as you’re trying to remain undetected, you can’t enter the room where they’re in and you can only hear them commenting about how something doesn’t feel right.
• Useless Item: Sadie has a side quest where she needs ice to make ice cream donuts. Get her ice from the Great North and she'll give you one, but you can't do anything with it.
• Variable Mix: Using Greg's abilities adds an electric guitar line to the various battle themes, and one of Steven's abilities adds a ukulele line likewise. Both can be active at once.
• Walking the Earth: At the end of the game, Hessonite goes on a journey of self-discovery to see whether Homeworld was right or wrong about her being perfect. The Prism also goes on a similar journey, though it stays on Earth.
• Worthy Opponent: After she is defeated at the end of the game and Steven tells the Prism that it shouldn't try to be anything but itself, Hessonite acknowledges that Steven is a "wise little creature".
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: During the penultimate battle of the game against the Light Warrior, you have to pick dialogue choices that encourage it to be independent and make its own choices. The other dialogue choices only indirectly fuel its belief that it is helpless and needs the intervention of others to make decisions for it. This is also the trick to getting the best ending.

---