Video Game / Trials Of Kokoro

The main title card

Trials of Kokoro is a High Fantasy JRPG developed by TD Games, and released for Steam on June 23, 2023. It's the second game in the author's Legends of Vitaria series.

Trials of Kokoro combines RPG mechanics like skill and spell customization with resource management, and a visual novel-esque storyline.

Tropes present in this game:

• Absurdly High Level Cap: Averted. Each character reaches around Power Level 18 before the end of the game, regardless if you beat every fight and/or never fall unconscious.
• Action Girl: Rhea, Rose, and even Athena. Rhea is a swift fistfighter, Rose is skilled with ice and support magic, and Athena channels the powers of her Goddess, Trestae.
• After-Combat Recovery: The heroes will recover 5 health and 10 spell energy at the end of battle, but you can toggle an option to have them recover all of their resources, instead.
• Alcohol Hic: Klein is drunk the first time you meet him, and does this quite often until he comes to.
• All-Loving Hero: Aedric banishes himself to an alternate dimension and fights against powerful otherworldly foes, in order to protect the life on Vitaria.
• Ambiguous Ending: Whether Klein kills Boreas is never revealed, leaving his fate up to player interpretation.
• Amnesiac Hero: Aedric wakes in a forest with no memories, and the game follows his journey to remember who he is.
• And I'm the Queen of Sheba: One of the Black Wolf mercenaries disbelieves Klein's ruse, mocking him instead.

  Klein: We're... minding our own business. We live on this side of the Ring.

  Black Wolf Mercenary: Really? A group of rag-tag adventurers like yourselves...? If that's true, I'm Prince Lane!

• Anti-Frustration Feature: The game autosaves before every fight, allowing players to bypass the story segments if they lose or want to try again.
• Anti-Grinding: The game is a linear adventure, so there's no way to grind or replay previous battles.
• Anti-Magic: An invisible anti-magic field surrounds Mount Veritas, making it difficult to concentrate on spellcasting. This field disrupts a mage's connection to the Weave, giving them horrible headaches that can eventually be fatal.
• Anti-Villain: Gauth abducts the people of Dangje because he never recovered from the loss of his loved ones. Through his experiments, he hopes to stop death, preventing anyone else from losing people dear to them.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Averted. Everyone in the party that is able to fight, including non-player characters on the heroes' side, will do so. While most of the game lets you control four characters, some battles will have the party at six members, total.
• Arc Villain: The game has a different villain per Act, that must be defeated at its end.
  • In Act I, you must defeat Valiarana, the Queen of Thorns.
  • In Act II, you must defeat Gauth, the serial killer abducting the people of Dangje.
  • In Act III, you must defeat the leaders of the Black Wolf mercenaries.
  • In Act IV, you must defeat The Distant One.
• Apocalypse Cult: Father Verascus of House Caveral worships the Distant One as a sort of God, believing it'll take him to its domain once summoned.
• Bald of Evil: Father Verascus of House Caveral.
• Beast Man: The ikati are humanoid, bipedal lions and tigers.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Averted in most instances. Gauth and many of the humanoids are fairly attractive.
• Black Mage: Damien and Klein both possess strong damaging spells, and very little in the ways of support.
• Cast from Hit Points: The Sacrifice series of staff skills all use the character's health as their cost.
• Cat Girl: Rhea is a half-ikati, and possesses feline ears, despite looking human otherwise.
• Character Level: A character's Power Level measures their overall strength.
• Chain Pain: The Painbearer, encountered in Act IV, wields chains as weapons.
• Chekhov's Gag: At the end of Act I, Jin jokes that he's glad Aedric, a knight, helped Rhea. Aedric denies he's a knight, but later, at the end of Act III, he is knighted for helping Berholven. In Rhea's ending scene, Jin says that he was right about Aedric being a knight.
• Class and Level System: Every character has their own class, and can unlock one skill with each Power Level they reach.
• Climbing Climax: Aedric learns his true nature at the top of Mount Veritas.
• Cute Bruiser: Rhea is a cute young ikati girl, but the Gods help you if you get in the way of her fists.
• Damsel out of Distress: Rhea finds herself imprisoned in a cell, but escapes, thanks to her creative thinking and physical prowess.
• Deal with the Devil: Because they accepted a 'gift' from Valiarana, Imienna turns into a terrible creature obsessed with beauty, and Kirielle has her mind merged with a predatory plant.
• Demanding Their Head: Damien's head is worth a hefty reward if returned to House Caveral, and the group encounters multiple assassins as a result.
• Distant Finale: The game's ending narration takes place two years after the final villain is defeated.
• Double-Meaning Title: Kokoro is the Japanese word for 'heart,' or 'soul.' The game's title can refer to the village in Act I, Kokoro, or it can refer to Aedric, relating to the events he goes through, and whether his personality and experiences give him a soul, despite being a divine construct that technically doesn't have one.
• Elemental Powers: Most mages of the game, and even some of the fighters, use the elements. Klein, a Wind Adept, casts spells like Wind Blade, Aero, and Tornado, while Damien, a Magi Savant, uses multiple elements, including ice and earth.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Targeting enemy weaknesses is a huge part of the game's strategy. Aside from traditional weaknesses, like fire elementals being weak to ice, the game features themed weaknesses, like spirits being weak to force magic, or enemies that wear metal being weak to ice.
• Everyone Must Be Paired: Aedric ends the game together with Athena, Klein ends with Rose, and Damien, with Mia.
• Evil Sorcerer: Almost all of the Cor Anaran mages in the game are incredibly powerful, power-hungry, psychotic, and narcissistic.
• Everybody Lives: Everyone is happily reunited at the end of the game, with no casualties among the main cast.
• Eye of Newt: Athena uses bellrenn, nightshade, and hennit berries to create the salve that cures Jin from Scarlet Rhynis.
• Fake-Out Twist: The ending implies that Aedric's friends die in a magical explosion, but it's later revealed that Aedric used his powers to teleport them to safety. Later, Athena narrates that it's been two years since Aedric disappeared, but she is later reunited with him, thanks to Trestae's assistance.
• Fantastic Caste System: Cor Anara is infamously broken up into castes, with mages being respected and worshipped, almost like Gods. Anyone without magical talent is seen as a second-class citizen.
• Final Boss: The Distant One is a powerful otherworldly being set on destroying Vitaria and the world.
• Food End: Everyone is enjoying time together, eating danishes made by Rhea.
• Foreshadowing: Aedric's true nature is hinted at throughout the game.
  • At the game's start, Rhea asks Aedric if he was born today. While that may seem illogical since he's a young adult, it's actually the truth. Eikor created Aedric just moments before Rhea finds him.
  • Everyone in the game has an element they're aligned with, and Aedric's is darkness. This may seem strange, since his magic deals holy damage, but given that he's an Aspect of the God of Balance, his element, darkness, balances out his powers, light.
  • One of Aedric's level-up quotes is that he's experienced this feeling, before. This is because he's gaining power, like the rest of Eikor's Arbiters have in the past.
  • Kirielle attempts to read Aedric's mind, but is unable to. This is because he's protected by Eikor's magic.
  • Imienna says she consumed Aedric's soul, but Kirielle and Athena are still able to revive him. This is because he never had one to begin with.
  • About halfway through Act II, Athena will ask Aedric where his powers are from. She says that they're like those of a Favoured, since Aedric's incantations are incredibly similar to prayers.
  • When Aedric is asking about Dangje's murderer, a man will tell him that Godlike are created with a task that only they're aware of. In the very first scene of the game, the commands that are shown are Aedric's orders.
  • Before and during the fight with Gauth, Aedric's eyes will glow while he is furious. If you mouseover Aedric during battle, he will have the status 'Wrath of Justice,' symbolizing his divine wish to right extreme wrongs, thus creating the balance and order desired by Eikor.
  • After confronting Gauth, Rhea asks Aedric what he saw in the laboratory. Not wanting to tell her about the murdered citizens, Aedric tries to deflect her question, but is unable to. This is because as a Godlike of Eikor, he is unable to lie.
• Glass Cannon: Damien does very heavy damage, but is incredibly fragile, especially if the party's Aggro isn't managed properly.
• Good Is Not Soft: Although he is kind-hearted and forgiving, Aedric is not afraid to kill those he believes unredeemable.
• Group Picture Ending: The credits scene.
• Half-Breed Discrimination: Rhea was cast out of her tribe for being a half-ikati.
• Happy Ending: The final villain is defeated, and everyone is together and happy.
• Healing Potion: Healing salves.
• Heel–Face Turn: Valiarana attacks Kokoro, but is convinced by Kirielle to surrender. She spends the rest of the game protecting the village and even aids Rhea before the final series of battles, proving that her word was genuine all along.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Aedric, the main hero of the game, uses one and two-handed swords.
• Heroic BSoD: Aedric, after being nearly killed by Imienna, realizes that his foolishness could've killed him, and possibly, his friends. He is regretful about his actions, and vows to be more careful trusting people in the future.
• Hit Points: Health.
• His Story Repeats Itself: At the game's end, Aedric questions whether he should blindly trust Caride, showing his character growth across the game and how he has matured.
• How Did We Get Back Home?: At the end of the game, Athena and her friends are unaware how they survived the giant explosion. Aedric used his powers to teleport them to safety.
• HP to 1: The Lobos Alpha's spell, Death's Door, reduces its target's health to one point.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Kirielle, Hansuke, Klein, and Rose all assist the party, are uncontrollable, and leave after they've completed their arcs. They are even referred to as Guest Characters by the game.
• God Is Good: A few examples.
  • Aedric is a Godlike, an Aspect of Eikor, God of Law. He judges the the world, deems life worthy of preservation, and fights to protect it.
  • Trestae assists Athena in the final battle, preventing the party from being mentally compromised by the Distant One's powers.
  • Trestae knows how much Athena loves Aedric. At the end of the game, She guides Athena to the forest where Aedric returns, giving her the chance to save him from death.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Averted and played straight. Aedric and Rhea use swords and fists, respectively, but Athena, Damien, Klein, and Rose all use magic.
• High Fantasy: The game is an epic journey across the continent of Vitaria, spanning two countries. The Gods assist the heroes, dangerous beings threaten the fate of the world, and they invoke powerful magic in order to save it.
• Infinity +1 Element: Magic dealing force damage isn't reduced by Willpower, the way other elements are.
• I Should Write a Book About This: Jin tells Rhea that she should write a book about her adventures, saying that she'd have a line of people waiting to buy it.
• It's Up to You: Played straight and averted. At the beginning of Act IV, only Aedric can reach the top of Mount Veritas. Later, only he is supposed to fight the Distant One, but his friends care for him too much to let him do so on his own.
• Kill on Sight: The Black Wolf mercenaries have orders to kill Klein, should he ever return to Berholven.
• Lady of War: Commander Klaudia, the head of Berholven's military.
• Laser Blade: The sword Este'lienn can be seen as this, since its blade is formed of pure light.
• Last Stand: This appears to be the fate of Klein and Rose, until Aedric uses his powers to rescue them.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Aedric blindly runs into the jaws of an Eth'leenian mantrap, without any regards for his safety.
• Light 'em Up: Aedric wields destructive holy magic in the form of Diem, Luce, and Rexus Ultima.
• Literal-Minded: Aedric doesn't understand many figures of speech used by his friends. For example, when Rose asks if he and Athena have 'a thing,' he thinks she's referring to a salve.
• Lovable Rogue: Damien is lighthearted, doesn't follow many Cor Anaran rules, and doesn't take many things seriously, but has a heart of gold.
• Magic Knight: Aedric's class, the Wanderer (and later, the Arbiter), focuses on sword techniques and offensive holy magic, making him arguably the most versatile character in the game. He can even heal with his Aura of Succor.
• Mana: Spell energy.
• Medals for Everyone: At the end of Act III, Klein knights Aedric for his heroic actions and help in freeing Berholven from the Black Wolf mercenaries.
• Mind Control: Some enemies, like Ciphers and Blood Adepts, can dominate the player characters for a time, mentally forcing them to attack their allies.
• Mirror Match: Aedric's battle with Dairec in Act IV.
• Monster Clown: The Fool appears like an ordinary clown, but uses strange magic, teleports (which is only possible via an Ancient Eldyrian Spell), and aligns himself with the Distant One, furthering its goals. His whole attitude is elusive and condescending, and Aedric even admits that The Fool is far stronger than he wants to appear.
• My Greatest Failure: A few instances.
  • Aedric's biggest regret is trusting people blindly, which nearly gets him and his friends killed.
  • Damien left his family's House in an impulsive fit of anger, and regrets doing so, terribly.
• No Loves Intersect: Everyone's love interest is clear, and there is no drama or jealously between any of the cast.
• One-Hit Kill: There are a few instantly fatal spells in the game, including the final boss' Eye of the End and the Aderyn y Corph's Slay Living.
• Oni: The group faces two oni while traveling in the wilds of Hinode.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: The party encounters a Hashihime, a ghost of a woman that was murdered by her lover. Due to her anger, she cannot pass on, and spends her time luring people to their deaths with her lamentful songs.
• Passing the Torch: At the end of the game, it is heavily implied that Aedric will bestow Este'lienn to Eikor's next Arbiter.
• Player Headquarters: Various stores across the game can be seen as this, since they're the only places to buy equipment, they usually allow the heroes to rest, and you can chat with their owners.
• Precursors: The Eldyrians existed centuries before the current races of Vitaria, but vanished mysteriously, leaving their Spells and ruins behind. No one knows where they went, but it's revealed that they are in an otherworldly dimension, fighting the Distant Ones alongside the Gods in an effort to protect all life on their homeworld.
• Plot Twist: The biggest twist in the game is that Aedric actually didn't have any memories at all. He's an Aspect of Eikor, created to judge if the life on the world is worth Eikor's protection.
• Pretty Boy: Almost all of the male characters in the game, especially Aedric, Damien, and Klein.
• Previous Player-Character Cameo: Lane is mentioned, revealing that he married Amber and is now the Prince of Guinevere, and Whitney is referred to in Dangje. Both are playable characters in the first game of the series, Trials of Guinevere.
• Really Royalty Reveal: Klein is the son of Theodore Ashvayne, the lord of Berholven.
• Red Shirt: Chyou is introduced quickly, and in her next scene, she is attacked and nearly killed. Athena heals her, however, and she makes a full recovery.
• Regenerating Health: The fae power, Regenesis, heals wounds over time. It's even a mechanic at the end of Act I, where the party must focus on one foe at a time, so they can deal more damage than it recovers.
• Rightful King Returns: Klein returns to Berholven, and upon learning of his father's death, he fights to liberate his home from its oppressors. After the events of the game, he rules the city for a time, until he surrenders his title to be with his loved ones.
• Running Gagged: Jin's belief of Aedric being a knight is eventually revealed to be true.
• Serial Killer: Gauth abducts the people of Dangje, and performs experiments on them, killing them in the process.
• Shock-and-Switch Ending: After the final fight, everyone appears to die, but they were actually teleported to safety, instead.
• Solemn Ending Theme: The game's credits theme is somber, but more hopeful than the title's, which is a variation of it.
• Squishy Wizard: Damien can easily fall in one or two hits on higher difficulties, making Aggro management incredibly important in using him effectively.
• Surprisingly Happy Ending: Aedric leaves Vitaria to fight in an alternate dimension, and two years pass without anyone seeing him. Later, he returns to Vitaria, reunites with Athena and his friends, and they finally experience the sunrise together.
• Status Buff: Many exist in the game, most notably Rose's Command Words, which increase her group's health, combat abilities, and damage dealt.
• Status Effects: The game employs them liberally. From Sundered, Regenesis, and Poisoned, to Stun, Addle, and Blind, both heroes and enemies can be affected by a multitude of status effects at any time.
• The Call Knows Where You Live: Klein left his home city, and thus, his position as lord, but reluctantly takes up the title once he returns. After the events of the game, he briefly keeps his position long enough to see to the recovery of the city, but retires afterwards to live his life his way.
• The Cutie: Rhea.
• The End: 'Fin' at the end of the credits.
• The Paladin: Aedric is a kindhearted warrior who is skilled with a blade, uses powers granted to him by Eikor, God of Balance and Order, and fights to protect life on Vitaria.
• Took a Level in Badass: Athena starts the game fearful, incredibly insecure, and unable to use her magic to treat a boy's illness, having to resort to herbs, instead. At the end of the game, she is able to restore people from the brink of death, stop an immensely powerful creature from corrupting her and her friends, and save Aedric, a demigod, from dying.
• Universal Poison: Poison will always take 15% of a character's health at the start of their turn, but will expire after a set duration. Deadly Poison causes the same amount of damage, but must be cleansed to be removed.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: A short narration plays for all of the main characters at the end, with Athena saying what happened to everyone.
• Where It All Began: Rhea returns to Kokoro at the end of the game, reuniting with Jin and Mrs. Tsukino. Also, Athena is guided to the forest where Rhea met Aedric, and is able to save his life.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Aedric initially believes that everyone is kind and inherently good-natured. Over time, he experiences tragedy, but he still fights to protect the world and those he loves.
• White Mage: Athena wears a white robe and is the primary healer of the party, able to treat wounds, bring back the fallen, and cleanses them of harmful conditions. She only possesses one attack spell in the entire game, Incandesci, and it must be taught to her via a skill book.