Video Game / Violet Haunted

Yes, this is the title image, and yes, this is how it's officially scaled.

Violet Haunted is an RPG Maker game developed by Donnie D. Washington II, and released for PC through Steam on November 27, 2014. It serves as a prequel and side story to Destiny's Faith, another work by the aforementioned author.

Violet Haunted is infamous for its scattered plot, odd balancing, and immature dialogue, often venturing on So Bad, It's Good territory. The main character, Violet Shade, is a Darker and Edgier mage with a heavy case of Sex Addiction. Joined by two companions, a childish Spiritual Adept named Luminara, and a Cyberhunter from the future, Tyrin, Violet Shade sets out to find the meaning of her life.

Tropes present in this game:

• Action Girl: Violet. She's a powerful dark mage that wields a katana.
• Angst: Violet goes on and on about how she has no direction, doesn't care about herself or anyone, and doesn't deserve to live. Thankfully, she grows out of it at the end.
• Anticlimax Boss: Luminara. When you encounter her, she proceeds to attack you for being an evil witch. She makes herself out to be this incredibly strong rival, but you can easily beat her in one turn by casting the first dark spell you know, Shade.
• Author Avatar: A couple.
  • One of the characters Violet sees dying during the introduction is named Don, and his death is obviously intended to be tragic and heartbreaking. Before he dies, he declares his love for Violet, of course.
  • Howe, the monk who rescues Violet from the Vampire Lord is another example. Naturally, he's athletic, intended to be very wise, and is very... very popular with the ladies. The game won't let you forget.
• Awesome McCoolname: Violet Shade. The game references her name constantly, and in many variations, reinforcing its attempts to show how cool it thinks it is. Also, Yuriko, X, and Sabre Claw.

• Bare-Fisted Monk: Somewhat averted. Luminara, the Spiritual Adept, uses claws. Howe fits the bill exactly, however.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Luminara. Despite being 46 years old, she is a teenager in the eyes of her Wyndan people, and spends a good portion of the game being childishly obnoxious to Violet.
• Buffy Speak: Violet and Luminara have an entire conversation about making sense of the technology present in Tyrin's future. It's actually rather hilarious.
• Bury Your Gays: Tyrin is the most developed and interesting character in the story, and he starts the adventure heartbroken over the loss of his husband. Unfortunately, he too, dies in the end.
• Character Development: With Luminara and Howe's help, Violet grows from being self-loathing and angsty to wanting to protect the world and find Howe's daughter.
• Darker and Edgier: Violet uses dark magic, and the game reminds you that she uses dark magic no less than ten times. Also, the game tends over-emphasize how cool Violet is supposed to be while she holds her katana or grasps her bosom in contemplation. Be prepared for lines like this throughout the game:
  Violet: Light? My soul is black and filled with darkness.
• Deus ex Machina: Bizarrely averted. Howe appears out of nowhere to save Violet from the Vampire Lord, but she's already been defeated. The game doesn't even acknowledge this, acting like you lost the fight, instead. Actually doing so results in a Game Over.
• Doomed Hometown: The first town in the game is littered with corpses, with only Violet being the survivor.
• Drama Queen: The villain, and Violet, to a certain degree.
  Violet: Those fangs..........Vampire??!!!!
  Violet: What do you want from me?
  Vampire Lord: EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Dramatic Ellipsis: Everywhere. Sometimes, entire lines of text are often nothing but ellipses. One example:
  Violet: I'm sorry to hear that. I too......lost everything......I have...........
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Most enemies and all members of the party are affected by this.
  • Violet, who uses dark magic, is weak to light.
  • Luminara, who uses light magic, is weak to darkness.
  • Tyrin, who uses lightning, is also weak to lightning.

• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The protagonists.
  • Violet is a Ritualist, a dark mage that is also good at healing.
  • Luminara is a monk-like Spiritual Adept that can increase her powers and use offensive light magic.
  • Tyrin, a Cyberhunter, is good with technology and has a wide variety of abilities, depending on whether he is using bows or guns.
• Flashback: While Violet struggles to get her bearings, she recalls the moment when she started her training, as a child.

• Heroic Sacrifice: Luminara stays behind to fight Violet's pursuers at the portal, so Violet can escape and help save the world.
• Hidden Badass: Luminara starts weaker than both Violet and Tyrin, yet can become so powerful that she is capable of soloing the hardest fight in the game all by herself. Eventually, she will do about three times as much damage with her basic attacks, compared to her friends.
• Info Dump: Averted. Unlike most RPG Maker games, there is no intro cutscene, movie, or dialogue to explain some of the story or world. You're just thrown right into the game.
• Insane Troll Logic: Two bizarre examples:
  • After you beat the first encounter with the Vampire Lord, she even admits defeat. Suddenly, a burst of fire comes from nowhere, and Howe appears. He tells you to stay away from her because she's too powerful, and then proceeds to battle the Vampire Lord, himself. After the fight, Violet thanks him, and says that she couldn't have beaten her alone.
  • You fight cybernetic ghosts, reapers, and spiders in one area of the game. How can a ghost be both incorporeal, undead, and part robot? The game doesn't know either, and just hand-waves the topic away without a second thought.
• Irony: The bad formatting of the title image on the Steam Store Page explains the quality of the game perfectly.
• I Will Only Slow You Down: At the end of the game, Violet's companions are near death after being attacked by the villain, so they sacrifice themselves, allowing Violet a chance to escape. Luminara appears later, saying she healed herself, and accompanies Violet for a while. After approaching a portal back to the world, Luminara valiantly says that she will fight off their pursuers at the portal, and tells Violet to go through it immediately. Naturally, she won't accept no for an answer.
• Jack of All Trades: Tyrin. He has some good support abilities, can protect the party from harmful magic, and does decent damage, to boot.

• Lady Swears-a-Lot: Violet, and to a lesser extent, Luminara. Here's one terribly hilarious example:
  Violet: Oh dammit! Shade, why'd you always have to be such a hardass? Shit, shit!!!
• Lampshade Hanging: When Violet and Luminara meet Tyrin for the first time, this bit of fun happens:
  Violet: Hey handsome. What are you doing?
  Tyrin: Oh. Hello ladies.
  Violet: Like what you see handsome?
  Luminara: I.....thought you were mourning....
  Luminara: Really, how can you even think about getting laid at a time like this? You're worse than a man.
  Violet: Shh shut up. I'm grieving, not dead.
  Luminara: ...............

Keep in mind that Violet did just murder her entire village moments before, including her own father and best friends.

• Large Ham: The main villain. Every line she speaks is over the top and dramatic.
• Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Averted. Violet starts the game at level sixteen, but caps fairly quickly. Luminara, the Spiritual Adept / Monk starts at level one, but as she levels up and finds better weapons, her power skyrockets, making her much higher in level than her friends. She does much more damage than them, as well, and can even solo one of the most difficult fights in the game all by herself without taking a scratch, if you play carefully.
• MacGuffin: The Warding Stone needed to access the portal which leads you to the Vampire Lord's castle.
• Magitek: Tyrin uses guns, bows, and spells. Also, enemies in one of the game's dungeons are a fusion of cybernetics with the undead.
• Mr. Fanservice: Averted. Howe, a shirtless world renowned monk, loved by all the women of the land, and the one that offers advice to Violet while she is vulnerable is supposed to be this, but the ridiculousness of the writing makes him unable to be taken seriously.
• No Indoor Voice: The main villain. Most of her lines are shouting in all caps, followed by endless exclamation points.
• Obligatory Swearing: Violet occasionally erupts into a fit of gratuitous cursing. She's mature and cool, remember?
• Only Sane Man: Tyrin. Despite his hormone-charged and bratty companions, Tyrin remains level headed and intelligent.
• Optional Boss: Encountered in the last cave area of the game are three martial art masters, Yuriko, X, and Sabre Claw. Their fight is optional, but if you win, you get Luminara's strongest weapons as a reward.
• Plotholes: So, so many...
  • Why is Violet's father among the people that she has murdered at the village? The game specifically states that she ran away from him, yet he catches up with her. Why would she kill him, too, when he obviously isn't part of the villagers?
  • A deity-like guardian of the world, Fate, helps Tyrin and his family before they meet up with Violet and Luminara. Why doesn't he continue travelling with him, or get him back to his original timeline?
  • Why is there not even a brief explanation about the world or its events? You're just thrown into the game with no idea what's going on, who anyone is, or why you should even care.
  • If Tyrin is from the future, why is the futuristic dungeon present as well? Did it get transported into the modern time along with him? Why?
  • Howe easily beats the Vampire Lord in combat, almost without breaking a sweat. Being as powerful as he is, why doesn't he just finish her off? He would save Violet (and consequently his daughter) all kinds of trouble if he just did so when he had the chance.
  • Howe is the most capable character in the game. Why doesn't he look for his daughter, himself? Since it is established that most people recognize him easily, wouldn't they have an idea of who she was, too? Why would he task Violet, a complete stranger, with finding her, when he is obviously the best choice?
  • At the end of the game, Luminara stays by the portal back to the home world, so that she can buy Violet time to escape. Although they're said to be pursued, we don't actually see anyone or anything chasing them.
• Plucky Girl: Luminara. She's generally more optimistic and lighthearted than Violet, yet also a bit more annoying.
• Rousing Speech: Howe encourages Violet to find meaning and goals in her life, breaking her from her nihilistic stupor and allowing her to take control over her destiny.
• Rule of Cool: Averted. The game is written to be this, but it's rather over the top and cringe-inducing, instead. We're supposed to be in awe as Violet's bosom heaves, or marvel at the fact that her name was taken from the color of the dress her mother wore, but the bad writing often does the opposite, leaving us rolling our eyes, instead.
• Sex Addiction: Violet is this in droves. She has just murdered the entire population of her village, yet when she sees the first man after that, she can only think about sleeping with him. When she finds out he's gay, she yells at him for it. Later, during Howe's inspirational talk, she goes back in forth about whether finding a good man is the meaning of her life. Also, the game makes a constant point to describe all of the female characters' "obviously well curved figures," and how Violet "has always had a soft spot for male companionship."
  Violet: Oh for the love of.......this guy is crazy! CRAZY!!! And he has the nerve to be gay when I think he's cute.
• Straw Nihilist: Violet mopes on about life not having any meaning, and even alludes to wanting to commit suicide before Howe snaps her out of it.
• Sudden Name Change: Tyrin is referred to as Tryin at one point in the game, then reverts back to his real name immediately afterwards. The game also randomly calls Violet by her last name.
• The Cameo: Faith, Hope, and Illuminar, the heroes from Destiny's Faith, show up at the end of the game.
• The Casanova: Howe. The game goes through great lengths to talk about how great he is with women. Upon meeting him for the first time, Violet instantly recognizes this. She even flirts with him, and he alludes to possibly wanting to sleep with her.
• The Teaser: The game starts with Violet in her home village, with corpses of her friends scattered all around. Why did this happen? Pay attention, because the game doesn't go into much detail about it, and it's never brought up again.
• Thinking Out Loud: Tyrin does this often when he's thinking about the intricacies of technology.
• Tsundere: Luminara. She originally dislikes Violet, often teasing and insulting her, yet warms up to her in the end, going as far as calling her a big sister. At the end of the game, she even martyrs herself so that Violet can escape from the villain's forces.
• Took a Level in Badass: Luminara starts off incredibly weak, and even basic enemies in the first dungeon can one-shot her. As she gains power, however, she becomes a true force to be reckoned with.
• Useless Useful Spell: The Confusion and Sleep spells rarely land, and it's far more efficient using spells that damage all enemies, instead.
• Vampire Monarch: The Vampire Lord. She is in charge of a large army of undead forces, and rules from her dark castle.
• Unwinnable: The final fight is intended to be this. Oddly enough, it isn't. The one after that, however...

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