Video Game / Toukiden

Just another day in Utakata.

Toukiden is an Action-RPG "hunting" game for PlayStation Vita and Playstation Portable (PSP version released in Japan only) set in a fantasy world with medieval Japanese themes.

Throughout history, warriors known as mononofu, or "Slayers", have been protecting Nakatsu Kuni from malevolent beings from the Underworld known as Oni in secret. Eight years prior to the commencement of the story, a calamity known as the Awakening opened a massive gateway to the Underworld and brought an era of destruction as the Oni hordes ravaged the land and its people, forcing the mononofu to step out of the shadows and take charge of the fragmented remains of society. The story takes place in Utakata Village, one of the final lines of defense against the demons.

The game was published on June 2013 in Japan by Koei Tecmo, to great success. This was one of the few games that helped the sales of PS Vita: the weekly amount of PSV sold quadrupled during the week this game was released. An Updated Re-release titled Toukiden Kiwami was released for Vita and PSP in Japan in August 2014 (The PlayStation 4 version was released in April 2015), with a March 2015 release on Vita and PS4 for the US and Europe, and a June 2015 release on Steam.

A sequel, Toukiden 2, was released on July 28 2016 for Japan, with Western releases scheduled for late March 2017.

Compare Monster Hunter, Soul Sacrifice, Freedom Wars and God Eater.

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This game provides examples of:

• Acrofatic: The Jollux/Kueyama and Bladewing/Daimaen large Oni. Both are quite round but can still move with considerable speed.
• Action Girl: Every female Slayer, both NPC and Player Character.
• Affably Evil: Shusui. He's genuinely polite, encourages people to talk with him if they're upset or need a shoulder to cry on, and is an agent for the Council of Elders. He's very cavalier about revealing his and the Council's ambition, and cheerfully reminds the heroes that he'll be there to lead them down the dark path if they ever slip up.
• All Myths Are True: Played with. Many of the Mitama are referred to in-universe as fictional characters, such as Kaguya and Jiraiya, yet the presence of their Mitama implies that they were living people who were killed by the Oni at some point.
• All Your Powers Combined: The Second Awakening is prevented by the combination of Mitama that emerge from each of the characters.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Shikimi, the Shrine Maiden in training.
• And I Must Scream: The Oni devour souls. Spiritually sensitive people, such as Kikka, can hear the constant screams of people whose souls are trapped in an Oni's body.
  • The Mitama themselves often comment how grateful they are that you saved them from this fate.
• Antidote Effect: There are a number of skills that allow you to resist status ailments. However, taking one means you're giving up one of your very limited skill slots, and is only useful against one or maybe two large Oni. The status resist skills become even more pointless when it's considered that a Healing ally can cure them.
• Apocalypse How: The setting currently in the aftermath of a Societal Collapse. Human civilization has been reduced to a small group of primitive outposts and villages that struggle to survive. The Oni are attempting to bring about a Universal Metaphysical Annihilation by devouring souls and warping time, with the ultimate goal of distorting time and space so severely that history essentially unmakes itself.
• Apologizes a Lot: Hayatori. Half of his dialogue is him apologizing for stealing someone's kills or for a mistake he felt he made.
• Artificial Stupidity: While NPC allies are frequently stronger than the player character, they are also very stupid. Notably, they aren't very good at dodging, particularly against large Oni that charge frequently, and while they try their darndest to revive you if you go down, they fail to realize when doing so might be a bad idea and feel the need to activate a buff before doing so, even if the extra second spent not reviving will kill you.
  • There are also moments where the AI just can't figure out what to do, and may spend several seconds running back and forth doing nothing.
  • Fugaku's AI in particular is incredibly spotty and will consistently run in a straight line and push Oni around rather than actually attacking.
  • Averted in Toukiden Kiwami, where allies now dodge all the attacks they ran into in the first game, and are brutally efficient. They even time their destroyer attacks to keep the enemy in perpetual knockdown!
• Asian Fox Spirit:
  • Mitama based on the legendary kitsune Kuzunoha (mother of Abe no Seimei) and Tamamo-no-mae appear in the game, though they are Healing type instead of the Deceit might expect.
  • The Celestial Fox, or tenko, gathers items for you between missions. A few others can be seen wandering around Utakata as well. Contaminating one with an Animus seed creates the two-tailed large oni Snowflame and its palette swap Nightstorm.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Using the Rifle will allow you to see miasmal nodes, which works as this.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Most of the weapons and Mitama types have some attack or skill that sounds great on paper but isn't actually that great.
  • Space-type Mitama have the Warp skill, a short cooldown teleport with a huge number of charges allowing it to be used with impunity. Too bad it requires you to break your combo to enter the Stance of Communion and use, the distance it covers is huge and rarely practical and it can be somewhat difficult to aim when you're in a hurry.
  • Bows have quick-nock arrows and homing arrows. The former allows you to throw out fast area of effect attacks, good for smaller Oni. Unfortunately, it deals so little damage that trying to use them can take just as long or longer as using direct charged shots. Likewise, homing arrows allow you to target multiple targets with long range homing projectiles, good for detonating cursed arrows...except they take more stamina and time to line up and deal less damage than using basic charged shots to detonate cursed arrows.
  • The Spear's brace, which allows it to stop charging Oni, requires incredibly precise positioning and psychic levels of prediction to use reliably, especially against late game Oni that require it to charge for a few seconds to actually stop them.
  • The Dual Blade's dash, which allows you to rapidly attack while sprinting. Weaker than its spin attack and harder to maintain because you're constantly in motion.
  • The Longsword's Vacuum Slash. It doesn't deal noticeably more damage than the standard attacks and requires you to charge for a few seconds, during which time most Oni will move or just attack you.
• Bad Ass Adorable: Hatsuho, and probably Nagi. Maybe Ouka as well, though she's closer to Amazon than adorable.
• Bad Ass Crew: The Slayers of Utakata, the Midlands first, last and only line of defense against the Oni hordes.
• Bad Ass In Distress: Ouka, Fugaku and Hayatori all have a rather bad habit of running off alone and getting into trouble.
• Backstab: Deceit-type Mitama cause all your attacks to gain massive Critical Hit chance if you are attacking your target from behind.
• Barrier Maiden: Kikka, and the purpose of Shrine Maidens in general.
• Becoming the Mask: Shusui's initial goal is to sabotage Utakata's defenses by getting rid of Kikka. When Kikka proves how resolved she is to defend Utakata, and the Player Character and other mononofu defeat the Oni Commander, he grows genuinely fond of them and reveals his allegiances.
• Belly Mouth: The Jollux and Edax large Oni have an enormous mouth on the belly that's usually closed. Once they're enraged, the mouth opens and they bounce along like a man-eating Pac-Man.
• Berserk Button: Destroying their body parts is a good way to make the large Oni very cross.
  • Threatening Kikka is not something you want to do if Ouka is within earshot.
  • Flying Oni make Fugaku really, really mad. This is because the Oni that destroyed his village and ate most of his friends and family resembles a giant bird.
• Big Damn Heroes: Several of the offline missions involve the Player Character and one or two allies running in to rescue someone who ran off alone or has been corned.
• BFS: Every single sword in the game. They are far longer than their wielders are tall^note See the image above? If the full length of the sword is to be displayed, the image would have to be twice as wide., which is a good thing since most enemies that matter are far taller than the humans. It's also Ouka's preferred weapon.
  • The Large Oni Tokoyo no Ou (the Cimmerian King in the localization) combines this and Blade Below the Shoulder for a very intimidating effect.
• BFG: The Rifles are as big as, and in some cases, bigger than the user is tall. The Rifle made from Gouenma/Chtonian Fiend parts is a particularly ridiculous example.
• Big Sister Instinct: Ouka has a very overt one toward Kikka.
  • Hatsuho claims to feel one for the kids of Utakata. However, her definition of "kids" includes Yamato and her fellow Slayers.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: The large Oni Tokoyo no Okami/Amarathine King have a titanic ax in the place of their left arms.
• Body Horror: Some of the Oni are downright horrifying. One example is Kagachime, a large Oni that seems to have crawled out of one of Junji Ito's nightmares. It's a giant snail with toothy maws on the end of its eyestalks, and growing up between its eyestalks is the body of a busty woman...with stony, cracked skin, a gigantic mouth with too many teeth, horns, sharp claws and a third eye on her forehead.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Fugaku.
• Boss Arena Recovery: Many sections of the map have small prayer shrines that can be used once to refill your health or Mitama skills. Some require your oni-no-me to be seen.
• Break Meter: Present in two varieties for the large Oni, and visible with your Demon Eyes.
  • One is a purple bar above their health. When this purple bar is depleted, the large Oni goes berserk, but damage can be done to its health.
  • The other is for individual breakable parts. Initially, they are highlighted white, and change color from white to yellow to orange to red as they take more damage and finally break off.
• Brutal Bonus Level: Some of the non-mandatory missions, particularly in the offline single player, are incredibly difficult, often requiring you to fight multiple large Oni at once with fewer allies or by yourself.
• Bullfight Boss: Most of the big Oni have a phase where it will charge blindly at you. If you've rendered their organ of locomotion ethereal, they will stumble at the end of the charge.
• Camera Centering/Camera Lock-On: Which are very helpful for keeping track of some of the faster or more elusive Oni.
• Carry a Big Stick: The Spiked Club, from Kiwami.
• Character Customization: You can select the name, the gender, the hair-style, hair-color, and skin-color of your character. The hair-style and hair-color can be changed later anytime in the game.
• Charged Attack: Each weapon type has a Hold-type charge attack of some kind
  • Additionally, every weapon has a Collect-type in the form of the "Onichigiri" or "Destroyer" attack, which only becomes usable after dealing enough damage.
  • Spirit-type Mitama also qualify, giving you access to a variety of damaging spells that become more powerful the longer you charge before casting them.
• Chick Magnet: A male pc is definitely this with being able to turn every female in town into a harem. A female pc is a DudeMagnet as the same applies except with guys though a lot of subtext is still there for the females as well.
• The Chosen One: The Player Character, naturally. They possess the power to both communicate and bond with the Mitama, whereas everyone else can either only bond with them (Other mononofu like Ouka) or only communicate with them (Shrine Maidens like Kikka and Shikimi)
• Climax Boss: Remember Gouenma/Chtonian Fiend, that Big Red Devil in the tutorial? That's the Oni Commander and boss of chapter 4. Since he's directly responsible for pretty much everything you've gone through up to that point^note As the Oni Commander, he's been the one orchestrating all the other Oni activity, including the giant bird that ate Fugaku's village, the Oni that brought the Dreaming Disease to Utakata, the repeated assaults on the village's barrier, etc, punching him in the face is a catharsis of the finest degree.
• Combat Medic: Nagi, which is why she's one of the more popular party members. The player can also be this if you equip the right Mitama and skills.
• Co-Op Multiplayer: Ad-hoc mode in both PSP and PS Vita, as well as online-mode for PS Vita only. Considering that past certain points the Artificial Stupidity of the NPC will really begin to shine, you would want to have human allies to tactically take down the Oni.
• Crapsack World: Boy howdy.
  • Humanity scrapes a meager living out in the few remaining uncorrupted regions and show little to no sign of ambition outside of day to day survival.
  • Young girls are raised being taught their sole purpose is to be a Living Battery for the shields that keep the monsters at bay, and end up living short, miserable lives.
  • The Oni have ravaged and twisted the world into a bizarre temporal mess, where the very air is toxic, and are constantly laying siege to the last remaining human settlements so they can kill them and devour their souls.
• Critical Existence Failure: Played straight for players and small Oni, who can operate at full capacity so long as they have at least 1 health remaining. Large Oni on the other hand, will get weaker and stumble as you sever limbs and deal damage, provided they don't fly into a blind rage when sufficiently damaged.
• Critical Hit: The Precision stat, which is present on some weapons.
  • One unique characteristic of Gauntlets is that they can get guaranteed critical hits if you hit the attack button just as the attack connects.
  • One of the skills for Attack-type Mitama is to give all your attacks 100% critical hit chance for a limited time.
• Critical Status Buff: Some of the skills you can earn from your Mitama increases your attack and defense when you're near K.O. There is also an inversion of this, where the buff is when your Life Meter is full.
• Creature-Hunter Organization: The Slayers in general, being Oni hunters. But mostly the ones in Utakata, since they're in the spotlight.
• Crutch Character: All of your NPC teammates are significantly stronger and better equipped than you when you start the game, provide much needed damage and distract larger Oni. However, as the game goes on, you start to catch up to and surpass them, and their shoddy AI begins to outweigh their advantages.
• Cuteness Proximity: Hayatori, despite being The Stoic, is very easily distracted by the sight of Tenko and repeatedly asks for permission to touch the one that lives with you.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: A particularly egregious case during Nagi's personal arc. After defeating your first Terragrinder, its body does not fade after being purified. It then comes back to life and launches a volley of spikes at you, an attack that it does not have in game. It also has all its limbs during the scene, even if you severed and purified all its limbs during the preceding battle. A large Oni coming back to life after being purified never happens again and is never referenced by any of the characters, despite it being treated as a big deal at the time.
• The Cynic: Shusui, the record keeper. He has a very dim view of the horrible treatment of Shrine Maidens, and doesn't hesitate to let people know. Turns out he's doing this specifically to try and break Kikka's spirit.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: Nearly all the bosses are like this.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Everyone.
  • Ibuki, the easy going and friendly womanizer, hasn't truly cared for or loved anyone since he failed to protect the love of his life from Oni during the Awakening, and feels that giving any effort is pointless because there's some things that you just can't change.
  • Nagi, the well-mannered and soft-spoken scholar, has crippling self-esteem issues after she botched a surgery and killed her closest friend, with whom she had made a promise to become the best doctor in the world.
  • Hatsuho, the resident Genki Girl, is a Fish out of Temporal Water who got lost in the forest one day and came out 40 years later to find her entire family and all her friends dead, her home under siege by Oni, and her surrogate little brother now a middle aged man she barely recognizes.
  • Fugaku, the fight-loving big guy, is the sole survivor of his village, which was destroyed by the Oni, and was forced to watch his family and friends be slaughtered and eaten, including a little girl whom he was very fond of.
  • Hayatori, The Quiet One, is a former child assassin that turned on and killed the people who raised him when they ordered him to kill a young girl his age. He questions whether he did the right thing or not and feels he doesn't have the right to trust or be trusted, so he distances himself from others as punishment.
  • Shusui, the enigmatic record keeper, was originally from the north, where the Awakening first happened. When the Holy Mount withdraw all Slayer forces to defend the Midlands, Shusui's home and loved ones were lost. This lead him to become The Mole for the Council of Elders.
  • Kiwami adds one more in the form of Soma, the resident Ace and leader of the 3rd Division of the Hundred Demon Corps. He goes out for random missions often, and is one of the people in Utakata who are suspected to be a mole for the Council of Elders because of this. As it turns out, his comrades (the original 3rd division of the Hundred Demon Corps) died during the first Awakening 8 years ago, leaving him critically injured, and wracked with guilt. He keeps heading out to random missions (slaying 5 small Oni, for instance) to honor the dying wishes of his 16 comrades who died in the battle. And you help him honor the 16th one.
• Dark Fantasy: This is not a game where samurai battle each others for honor. This is a war for the survival of Nakatsu-kuni, and prior to your arrival, the humans are losing badly.
• David Versus Goliath: Every battle versus the big Oni.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: How you defeat any big Oni. Knowing where to hit will cut the number from 1000 to, say, 800.
  • The dual blade weapon type deserves special mention, as while they have the lowest power rating of all weapon types they attack faster than every other weapon.
• Didn't Need Those Anyway!: In the Oni's case, they really didn't need their body parts, because they are animated by joryoku ('foul energy').
• Did you just kill the God of the Underworld?
• Downloadable Content: Like God Eater Burst, there is a long stream of them. One of them is gaining Toro Inoue as a Mitama (this extra mission is dubbed ''Torokiden").
  • There is also collaboration DLC with "Soul Sacrifice" in the form of extra armor (the Royal armor set, known as the Noble raiment in Soul Sacrifice), A new weapon (a Spear. Specifically, a copy of the one stabbed through the Cerberus' stomach) and a new large Oni (the aforementioned Cerberus). This is unlocked in Kiwami after you reach Phase 10 in the multiplayer portion of the game.
• Dream Weaver: The Oni Kagachime. It renders people comatose by inviting them to stay in their dreams and happy memories, then devours their soul after they've slept for 100 days or die of other causes. Hatsuho chooses to accept its offer and nearly dies, despite knowing full well what will happen to her.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Ibuki gets extremely drunk after a rescue mission goes bad. Ouka and Fugaku imply this isn't the first time he's done this.
• Dual Wielding: Dual-blades. These are Hayatori's weapons.
• Early Game Hell: When you just start the game, you will wonder just why you're even joining the fight against big Oni, because everyone else outclasses you by leaps and bounds.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Oni, inter-dimensional and nigh-unkillable monsters, qualify.
  • Despite possessing physical bodies and internal organs standard of terrestrial life, they are all entirely tertiary. The Oni cannot be killed so long as their incorporeal essence is undamaged.
  • An Oni's essence warps and corrupts everything around them, is fatal to humans and animals and is created by time paradoxes.
  • The Oni are driven to slaughter and devour all non-Oni life, despite having no need for physical nourishment and instead trap their preys' still conscious souls within their bodies.
  • Many of the Oni's "body parts"^note  Drops of liquid that absorb light, blades of constantly burning ice that are simultaneously hot and cold, balls of solid light, stones that give off heat and beat like a living heart, etc. utterly defy the laws of physics and are described in-universe as being otherworldly.
• Elemental Powers: Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, and Celestial. Some monsters are weak against certain elements while strong against some others.
• Emote Animation: What JRPG would this be without them.
• Empathic Weapon: Certain weapons can be fused with a specific Mitama when fully upgraded, turning them into a new, unique weapon based on the Mitama. They are the most powerful weapons in the game.
• Empowered Badass Normal: The Slayers. Bonding to a Mitama just means you're capable of magic and surviving a hit from the Oni, you still need to be balls to the walls awesome if you want to have any hope of fighting back.
• Enemy Scan: Your oni-no-me, or "Demon Eyes". It reveals the Oni's HP, how close their body parts are to breaking, and certain hidden things, such as prayer shrines and rare enemies.
• Energy Economy: Conventional money has become all but worthless after the Awakening, so everything is paid for in "haku", which is the magical substance that binds everything in the physical world together, including the physical forms of the Oni.
  • "Selling" an item is breaking it down into haku. Buying is exchanging raw haku for an item of equivalent value. Prayers and Mitama upgrades are feeding spirits haku to appease them or make them stronger. Crafting armor and weapons is using haku to shape, strengthen and bond the materials.
• Equipment-Based Progression: Player characters never gain levels and only become stronger by crafting new weapons and armour or upgrading them through use in battle. Similarly, special powers and passive boosts are (mostly) acquired by equipping mitama.
• Evil Counterpart: The Council of Elders is this to the Slayers, being a secret organization that protected the world from Oni, but employed horrific and inhuman methods to do so. Fortunately, they were wiped out during the Awakening prior to the events of the game.
• Experience Meter: Your equipment has them. Wearing armor repeatedly and dealing damage with weapons fills up their Compatibility, which, when filled, allows Tatara to improve them at no cost.
• Fainting Seer: Using her power to sustain the barrier protecting Utakata or divine the Oni's intentions really takes it out of poor Kikka.
• Final Boss: Tokoyo no Ou (lit. Ruler of the Underworld), the Oni capable of opening a gate to the Underworld and causing a second Awakening, which is fought at the end of Chapter 5. That being said, it's regarded as just another large Oni among many, rather than a unique or singular entity.
• Flaming Skulls: Blazing Souls and Shadow Souls are floating flaming skulls that breath fire. Shadow Souls are also invisible unless the player uses the Eye of Truth.
• Four Star Bad Ass: Yamato. Technically, all the Slayers have a rank, but only Yamato is consistently and respectfully referred to as "Captain".
• Friendly Fireproof: Thankfully implemented, because attacks are flashy, incredibly damaging, and often have huge area of effect. If you actually hit your friends, you do no damage and cause no knockback. Unfortunately, this also applies to the Oni.
  • Healing Shiv: You're actually encouraged to hit your friends at times, because friendly fire can remedy certain Status Effects like Sleep or being Frozen. If you have a Healing-type Mitama, you can even cure status ailment like poison and burns by hitting your allies!
• Full Set Bonus: Wearing the full set of any armor gives you certain skills, usually bonus elemental resistance.
• Genki Girl: Hatsuho, who is always upbeat and eager to help out.
• Giant Flyer: Several big Oni, for example Hinomagatori and Daimaen.
• Giant Spider: The big Oni Mifuchi and its tougher Palette Swap Mafuchi.
• Gotta Catch Them All: The 200 Mitama. Good luck getting them all. Kiwami adds another 100 Mitama to find.
• Graceful Loser: Shusui takes it very well when he realizes that despite his best efforts, he won't be able to talk Kikka or the Slayers of Utakata into abandoning their posts. He even goes out of his way to help them, even though it foils his and the Council's plans.
• Heal Thyself: Mitama of every type have a skill that allows you to yourself, though Healing-type Mitama excel at it.
  • The Medic: Equipping Healing-type Mitama also allows you to heal your friends as well. NPC ally Nagi fills this role quite well.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": The local blacksmith is called 'Tatara', which means... 'the blacksmith'.
• Historical Domain Character: By the library-load. What would you expect from a game developed by Tecmo Koei's Omega-Force Division. They are your Mitama, and they range from ancient mythological figures in Kojiki to famous persons of Meiji era. If two historical figures are related, their Mitama probably have Combo-Skill.
  • Akechi Mitsuhide: Gamble-type. As well as his daughter Hosokawa Gracia (Healing).
  • Date Masamune: Attack-type.
  • Fuuma Kotaro: Rapid-type.
  • Hattori Hanzō: Rapid-type.
  • Honda Tadakatsu: Defense-type.
  • Ishida Mitsunari: Gamble-type.
  • Miyamoto Musashi: Attack-type.
  • Oda Nobunaga: Space-type.
  • Sanada Yukimura: Attack-type.
  • Sasaki Kojiro: Rapid-type.
  • Sarutobi Sasuke: Rapid-type.
  • Takeda Shingen: Stealth-type.
  • Tokugawa Ieyasu: Defense-type. As well as his grandchildren Tokugawa Iemitsu^note the Shogun who issued Country in Chains policy (Space) and Senhime (Healing). And his distant descendant Tokugawa Yoshimune^note the Shogun who initiated a series of reforms, undoing certain aspects of Country in Chains (Attack).
  • Toyotomi Hideyoshi: Rapid-type.
  • Uesugi Kenshin: Attack-type.
  • Yagyu Jubei: Attack-type.
  • The Shinsengumi: Kondo Isami (Attack), Hijikata Toshizo (Defense), Okita Soji (Attack), Saito Hajime (Rapid).
  • Other Meiji Restoration figures: Tokugawa Yoshinobu^note the last Shogun of Japan (Stealth).
  • Japanese Mythology: Izanagi (Rapid), Izanami (Stealth), Amaterasu (Space), Tsukuyomi (Healing), Susanoo (Attack), Yamato Takeru (Attack), Izumo Takeru (Defense), Kumaso Takeru (Gamble). The Orochi on the other hand appears as serpent-type big oni.
• Hold the Line: Some mission requires you to hold against waves of Oni. Narrative-wise though, you're always holding the line because Utakata is one of the final defenses against the Oni.
• Horror Hunger: The Oni's primary motivation. Technically, they only need their victims' souls, but they are driven to eat the rest of them anyway.
• 100% Completion: Much more manageable than other games in the genre due to the game keeping a viewable checklist of every item you've found, every piece of gear crafted, how many different skills you've used and whether or not you've destroyed every body part on a large Oni before.
• Impending Clash Shot: The cover pits the Default Player Character in the foreground with a Longsword and Nagi at the middleground against the first Oni you encounter, who takes up most of the shot as the background.
• Inelegant Blubbering: Hatsuho falls to her knees in a mess of tears when Yamamto finally gives her the letter her parents left for her, after the Player Character rescues her from the Dreaming Disease.
• It Can Think: Very early on, the Slayers of Utakata realize that the Oni are not mindless beasts; they're smart and they're organized.
• Item Crafting: Courtesy of Tatara, so long as you bring him the materials.
• Jack of All Stats: The Longsword and Kusarigama are this, both having decent damage, speed and range, though doesn't specialize in either one.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: The most effective way to whittle away the HP of the large Oni. Of course, you need to make them down first by destroying their feet-equivalent.
  • Worth noting that many large Oni can and will do this to you as well, as there are no invincibility frames for getting knocked down or standing up.
• Lady of War: Ouka and Nagi. But Ouka will drop all her cool if Kikka is in danger.
  • Some of the available women Mitama are this as well.
• The Legions of the Underworld: What the Oni are.
• Level-Map Display: To the upper right of the display.
• Life Drain: One of the skills available for Attack-type Mitama.
• Life Meter: The green bar at the top of the screen. If you take damage, some of it are lost while some turns red; if you stay out of the action for a while the red part will regenerate back to green.
• Limit Break: The aforementioned onichigiri or "Destroyer" move. Performing it causes your weapon to brightly shine white while the environment takes on a dark blue hue.
• Little Miss Badass: Hatsuho, who manages to keep up with veteran Slayers like Ouka and Hayatori, despite being significantly younger and smaller.
• Loot Command: The Ritual of Purification has to be carried out on each corpse and severed limb if you want drops (except "Minor Part" rewards for breaking horns and such). This requires the player to be stationary, which gets a bit dicey against large Oni. Thankfully, in Kiwami, you can command your allies to do the purifying for you.
• Love Transcends Spacetime: Used by the Oni, shockingly enough. The reason Oni are able to travel through time is by harnessing the human soul's desire to be reunited with those they love.
• Macross Missile Massacre: You can do this with any bow, logic be damned.
• Manual Leader, A.I. Party: Single-player mode.
• Mighty Glacier: Gauntlets. Far and away the highest possible damage output in the game, but they attack slowly, have short range and require your target to be stationary to get the most out of them.
  • As far as enemies go, the large Oni Hell's Warden and Hell's Sentinel. They're incredibly slow but have some of the highest health pools and hit like trucks.
  • Kiwami adds the Club, although it could be a Lightning Bruiser in the hands of a good Slayer.
• Mooks: The small Oni.
• The Mole: Shusui. He's been tasked by the Council of Elders to sabotage Utakata's defenses.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Takeikusa/Harrowhalf and its more powerful counterpart Magatsuikusa/Dreadhalf. Each of his arms is attuned to different elements (except Celestial).
  • Yamato no Nushi/Nightblade is basically Takeikusa with lower body of a snake.
• Ninja: Hayatori.
• Nintendo Hard: This game is more merciful than other games in the genre, but when it hits hard, it hits hard. You better be paying attention to the monsters' attack patterns.
• Non-Action Guy: Shusui the record-keeper.
• One Hit Break: Your Destroyer attack, which instantly breaks whatever breakable body part it hits and instantly kills any smaller Oni. You can only do this after you've filled your Soul Gauge, after which it goes back to zero. Kiwami adds the United Destroyer, which destroys multiple parts on a large Oni, but requires you to be close to your teammates to pull off.
• One-Winged Angel: Most Oni get bigger and scarier after you whittle down their HP.
• Organ Drops: Oni drop limbs, claws, tongues, and so on after they're defeated. Certain more exotic items border on Essence Drop.
• Our Centaurs Are Different: Tokoyo no Ou/Cimmerian King and its more powerful counterpart, Tokoyo no Okami/Amaranthine King.
• Our Giants Are Bigger: And they are so ludicrously big. There are few fully-humanoid giants though, one of them being the big Oni Kueyama/Jollux and its tougher counterpart Wadatsumi/Edax.
• Palette Swap: There's one of every single Oni, both large and small. The small Oni have "unclean" and/or "underworld" variants, which yield more valuable items while being marginally tougher or having an elemental attack. Meanwhile, every large Oni has a different colored version that is more aggressive, stronger, has a different elemental affinity and has some other minor aesthetic changes.
• Playing with Fire: Some of the big Oni, such as the aptly-named Hinomagatori/Pyropteryx. Gouenma/Cthonian Fiend on the other hand takes this up to eleven, in that it's unlikely you can survive a direct hit from his fiery blast.
• Post-End Game Content: A particularly exaggerated case: there is a whopping 5 chapters remaining after you defeat the final boss of the offline single player mode. Three of those chapters are only available in multiplayer. The story "ends" in chapter 5, so defeating the Big Bad means you're just halfway from actually completing the game. This doesn't count the inevitable DLC. Then Kiwami takes this up to eleven: this time, both modes have "15" chapters, and Chapter 10 in Multiplayer unlocks the DLC included in Age of Demons.
• Power Fist: The Gauntlet weapon type. Notable in that they are amongst the most ridiculous examples in the history of video games: Each individual gauntlet is about as big as your character's torso.
  • They are also Fugaku's preferred weapons.
• Practical Taunt: One of the skills available to Defense-type Mitama. In addition to drawing the Oni's focus onto you, your defense is temporarily increased.
  • Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: However, some of the larger Oni are better off left unfocused...
• Preorder Bonus: Depending on who you pre-ordered the game with, you can get extra equipment, unique Mitama and bonus online missions.
• Pretty Boy: Ibuki. Hayatori is as well, but as a Ninja he rarely ever reveals his face. Your character can be one too.
• Punched Across the Room: When a big Oni start charging at you, dodge.
• Purely Aesthetic Gender: The only difference the player character's sex makes is how some armor looks and how people react if you walk in on them in the hot spring, and whether or not Ibuki will flirt with you.
• Randomly Drops: The majority of the materials. There are so many of them that there is an in-game encyclopedia that takes note of what monster drops which items and what can be foraged in which areas.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: The Flurry special attack for Gauntlets, which starts off slow but gets faster and faster the more hits you land, and culminates in a shockwave producing Megaton Punch.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Yamato.
• Relationship Values: With your NPC mononofu allies and some of the townsfolk of Utakata. They run the full range from "Acquaintance" to "Friend" to "Soulmate".
• Repeatable Quest: All missions, barring the ones you get from raising the Relationship Values.
• Respawn Point: If you're knocked out for any reason and are not revived by an ally, you find yourself at the starting point of the zone. You can respawn up to three times per mission.
• Retired Bad Ass: Yamato again, getting that Eye Patch Of Power during the Awakening forced him off the front lines. Come Kiwami and a large oni force going towards Utakata, he's obligated to go back on the field.
• Samurai: Zigzagged. The game's atmosphere is that of an archaic, pre-Samurai Japan. Your characters are not samurai, more like adventurers. However, the Mitama are supposed to be the soul of famous historical figures, some of whom were samurai.
• Scenery Gorn: The Oni have really devastated the countryside surrounding Utakata.
• Score Screen: The game doesn't actually rank how well you perform in the mission, but keeps records of how quickly you complete each missions and sometimes grants extra rewards if you break and purify every body part on a large Oni or complete a mission particularly fast.
• Sequential Boss: Some missions requires you to fight one boss after another (after another...). In a few cases in those missions, if you're taking too long to dispatch a boss, the next one will come to fight you anyway.
• Serial Escalation: So you can defeat a Mifuchi. How about two Mifuchi? How about Mifuchi, Kazekiri, and Kueyama at the same time?
• Set Bonus: Equipping all the parts of an armour set will grant passive bonuses, such as elemental damage resistance or extra health. Equipping Mitama who are related somehow (spouses, a shared profession, etc.) also confers boosts.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The ultimate goal of the Council of Elders and Shusui. They want to cause a Second Awakening so they can go back in time and stop the first one from ever happening.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: If you bathe with certain characters of the opposite sex with whom you have fully strengthened your bond in the Pool of Purity the screen fades to black and gives a text box saying the two of you bathed together, but the dialogue beforehand hints that the two of you have sex.
• Sexy Soaked Shirt: Can happen to the entire cast, thanks to the Pool of Purity.
• Shows Damage: The body parts of the big Oni become ethereal after you break them. The player characters don't show damage, though.
• Snake People:
  • The Nightblade/Sableblade pair have four arms, two wielding over-sized weapons, and some magical powers. Their faces are very reptilian and rather masculine.
  • The Glaciabella/Mortabella introduced in Kiwami have a woman's torso and an inhumanly beautiful face, along with soft "wings" growing from the back. The real head seen when it goes berserk is very snakelike, with its mouth opening just above and behind the woman's face.
• Sniper Rifle: Kiwami adds the Rifle as an alternative to the bow. It's moveset includes tossing grenades.
• Solo Sequence: The battle against a Mifuchi at the end of chapter 2. You thought it has become easy to defeat huh? Well, try defeating it alone. If you've been paying attention this mission is somewhat bearable, if you're not then too bad for you.
• Spam Attack: Some of the most powerful attacks in the game are accessing a weapon's special move and using the right combination of skills and Mitama abilities to keep it going indefinitely.
• Spin Attack: You'd be surprised at how many big oni have this kind of attack. You can also do this using dual-blades, by holding O. This is one of the most effective attack in the game.
• Sprint Meter: The yellow bar below your HP bar represents how much Focus you have, which is drained when sprinting, dodging or using special attacks, and regenerates when not in use.
• Stepford Smiler: Hatsuho and Kikka.
• Stock Ninja Weaponry: The kusari-gama, or sickle and flail, which is Hatsuho's weapon. The actual ninja character, however, use dual-blades.
• Stone Wall: The Spear. One of the least mobile weapon types, but with long range and two attacks that are guaranteed to interrupt enemies if they connect.
• Survivor Guilt: A major theme for many of the characters.
  • Deconstructed by Fugaku. While he admits that he feels responsible for the deaths of his loved ones and wishes that anyone else besides him could have survived, he also believes that it's wrong for him to wallow in self-pity or refuse to move on with his life, and he knows that his friends and family would want him to keep on living. This perspective is critical for helping the Player Character snap Ibuki and Hatsuho out of their respective Heroic BSoDs.
• Swirly Energy Thingy: How the Oni appears in this world. These are actually portals from the Underworld.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: Of all weapons, Kiwami's Rifle, depending on which bullet is the next one to be fired. Outside of the default sniper and piercing bullets, Scatter-type ammo turns the boomstick into a shotgun and Explosive-type makes it a grenade launcher. That's if we don't count the Absorb bullet (who restricts an Oni's movement) and the Delay bullet...
• Take Your Time: No matter how urgent the next story mission is, there's always time to grind items to make new gear or complete quests.
• Tempting Fate: Seriously, who named the village 'Utakata'? It means foams, which in Buddhism implies fleetingness.
• Tender Tears: Nagi is prone to them. Notably, after she overcomes her anxiety about failure and makes the medicine needed to save Kikka, and later performs impromptu surgery in order to save the Player Character.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: The reason the world is so twisted and dangerous. When the Oni consume a soul, it becomes as if that person had never existed, yet the memories and records of that person are not lost. The resulting time paradoxes create the poisonous miasma that animates the Oni and warps the land into what it is today. Destroying the Oni frees the souls they consumed, returning them to their proper place in history.
• Turns Purple: Destroying one of their breakable parts or just inflicting enough damage to its physical form makes the big Oni go berserk. In this state, the Oni becomes faster, stronger and more aggressive, but their actual health is vulnerable to damage. When an Oni is berserk, they take on a purple sheen, get glowing red eyes, and the entire environment takes on a dark purple tinge.
  • Some large Oni will go Berserk twice, in which everything turns blood red and the Oni radically changes into a more fearsome or monstrous form.
• 20 Bear Asses: A majority of the quests received from villagers are "Bring me X [items]," while the rest are "Kill X [Oni]."
• Updated Re-release: Toukiden Kiwami, which adds new oni, weapons, characters, and mitama. And some other stuff.
• The War Has Just Begun: The 'end' of the single-player story mode. The threat of the day is punched back to the Underworld with the combined power of the Mitama, but the adventure continues. There are 2 more single-player chapters and 5 more multi-player chapters.
• You Are Already Dead: The Longsword's Gouge ability, which adds stacking marks to every body part you strike while the ability is active, and detonates them when the ability deactivates.