Seinarukana - The Spirit of Eternity Sword 2 is a Visual Novel by Xuse. The second in the Eien Shinken (Eternity Sword) series, and the sequel to Aselia the Eternal - The Spirit of Eternity Sword.
The main character, Setoki Nozomu, is an Ordinary High-School Student. Until one day, whilst helping out with preparations for the School Festival, the school, Mononobe Academy, comes under attack by a mysterious army of sword-wielding women, later identified as Minions. As it turns out, Nozomu is the incarnation of Jirol, the God of Destruction. He awakens to his powers during the battle, materializes his Shinken (Divine Sword) and does battle with the Minions. During the battle, his classmate and childhood friend also awakens to her powers, but it goes out of control and the entire school and the people within it are transported to another world. In their efforts to return to the "Original World", Nozomu and the others travel to many different worlds, meeting many different people.
This game provides examples of:
- The Ace: Gameplay-wise, Narukana, Euphoria and Nozomu are the most balanced characters and have the greatest potential to be used as All Rounders.
- Action Girl: Most of your party is composed by this.
- A-Cup Angst: Poor Nozomi has insecurities, even though she doesn't look that unfortunate.
- A Friend in Need: Happens several times. First Katima, then Nozomi, then Satsuki and then Nozomu.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: Narukana is the personification of the First Ranked Eternity Sword Heaven's Cloud.
- All Love Is Unrequited: Nozomi and Satsuki if you don't progress on either of their routes end up as this. Nozomi at least gets to kiss Nozomu before she gets captured by the Sovereign Gods.
- Amazon Brigade: Every single enemy that isn't a major character or a golem is a female Minion, or at least something resembling a female.
- Anticlimax: During the battle to defend the tower on chapter 4, everyone thinks the battle was won too easily. Turns out, they only beat the distraction and now have to face a full scale invasion.
- Apathy Killed the Cat: During Naya's route, she wonders if her will to protect her people didn't backfire on her because now they don't know how to protect themselves.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: It makes sense in context of the gameplay: Each squad needs one attacker (who attacks), one defender (who defends against the enemy attacker) and one supporter (who casts support spells). The only exception is the case of All-rounders, which are single units that fulfill all three roles in one squad, and fight alone.
- Artificial Human:
- The inhabitants of the Future World
- Also the Minions. Even though they aren't actually humans, they come close enough.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: As with the prequel, though this only happens on two of the routes.
- Aside Glance: One of Ruputna sprites has her doing this.
- Awesome Moment of Crowning: Katima's coronation.
- Backstory: Extremely important to the story. Everything began from the Northern-Southern Gods War who knows how many incarnations ago.
- Badass Adorable: Euphoria. Just Euphoria. Watch her mow down the mooks using Doom Judgement.
- Battle Aura: Accompanies the use of a character's most powerful skill(s). With CG.
- The Battle Didn't Count: The Sovereign Gods like to pull this on the party.
- Battle Harem: Subtle, but there. After the party saves Nozomu from Jirol's control, every single heroine with a possible ending smother him welcoming him back.
- Big Bad: The Lightbringers. Then the story goes from one Big Bad to another in short order. After the Lightbringers are the Sovereign Gods, then the Southern Gods, then the God of all creation. Depending on the route they still have to battle an Eternal to finish things off.
- Big Damn Heroes: Katima is introduced when she' being saved this way by the party. Ruputna also saves a few humans from being killed and then joins the party when they save her from the same fate.
- Bittersweet Ending: Satsuki's and Narukana's routes end with Nozomu exiled from the time tree because his simple existence is like poison for the rest of the universe, though he gets to continue living with the heroine in question.
- Born Winner: Reincarnation of the Gods can manifest their power when their life is in danger or when they want to protect someone. Though the power may be too much for their current body to handle.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Nozomi and Nozomu both get controled by their ancestral reincarnation at some point in the story.
- Breather Episode: Invoked. When they are travelling to the final confrontantion with Zetsu the students decide to finish the School Festival they were preparing before the start of their journey.
- Broad Strokes: Although the game is slated as a sequel to Aselia the Eternal - The Spirit of Eternity Sword, it has minimal to no relation with it, even though Euphoria is a major part of this story.
- Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Nozomu and Nozomi. Also later, Subaru and Jatzieta, though more subtle.
- Calling Your Attacks: Very few attacks are not called.
- Changing Gameplay Priorities: The strategies the player has to use changes per difficulty, with % becoming more important per difficulty. In Normal mode there are a few % attacks to learn, but aside from Naya's and Katima's route exclusive skills, and one that Sorluska learns, they're mostly not good and not worth using. But in Hard mode bosses get so much HP that you'll have to use % attacks more and more to do most of the damage before another attack can finish them offnote , and in Super Hard they become even more important. As a consequence, Black and/or Green characters may become your main attackers on harder modes.
- This also affects a boss' effectiveness, since your own characters will also get much more HP, so if a boss has weak or no % attack, they'll be much less threatening in harder modes than Normal mode.
- Hard and Super Hard also try to push the player into using more attacks. Whenever a stronger version of the same skill is learned, they almost always have less uses than the weaker version, so you'll have to switch around more and more the harder the difficulty.
- Chastity Couple: Considering that Narukana's H scene only happen in the epilogue of her route, and only after eons passed, one has to imagine they were this until that point.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The Red Haired woman that Nozomu and the party encounter in several different worlds. Turns out she's an Eternal and a very powerful one at that.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Nozomi, of the Patient Childhood Love Interest kind.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Apart from not really being a love interest, Reime fits the bill to a T.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Every character that has a battle sprite has a color scheme for their speech lines. If you see a character with a different color on their lines, chances are they are recruitable and/or an antagonist.
- Conflicting Loyalty: During her route, Narukana does not see anything wrong with Nozomu's body being taken over by Jirol despite the fact that everyone around her gets pretty angry with her because of it.
- Continuity Nod: Tokimi, Kaori, and Kotori whom the protagonist meets in the Mirror World are all characters from Aselia The Eternal - The Spirit Of Eternity Sword, the first visual novel of the Eien Shinken series.
- Also, sort of a Previous Player-Character Cameo since you could use Tokimi and Kaori in the first game, though Kaori was only available on the Tokimi route much like how Io was only playable on the Lesteena route.
- Combining Mecha: During the final battle in Narukana's route. Except it didn't involve mecha. It started with Narukana shouting "Gattai!", and then she sucked in Reime and Satsuki into her body and they became a single Shinken for Nozomu's use. Definitely one of the many Crowning Moments of Funny in this game.
- Cosy Catastrophe: Subaru's world. A Central computer AI (who was Subaru's Mother) keeps resetting time, so the world doesn't end.
- Crutch Character:
- Talia. Her attack skills are the worst out of the Blue characters, but she for whatever reason can learn stronger support skills earlier than the other characters, so whenever the player starts a New Game or starts Hard/Super Hard for the first time, she can have a crucial role in defeating bosses by banishing their support skills that the other Blue characters can't do. Eventually the other blue characters catch up and Talia struggles to have a niche besides being a character who just banishes support skills, which doesn't make her that useful against bosses.
- In an odd way, Narukana is this. When she first becomes available in Normal mode she'll be near the level cap and will be one of the strongest characters in the game, but once you play through Hard or Super Hard for the first time, she'll be the weakest character because she'll be at the level she was in the last playthrough, and she is the last character to join. So while everyone else will be around level 40 or 50 in Hard, or 70 or 80 in Super Hard, she'll be "only" at the level cap of the previous playthrough at best (30 for Hard, 60 for Super Hard), and will need to level up before she's good enough to fight even a basic mook.
- Cute Bruiser: All the heroines, plus Thalia and Euphoria.
- A Day in the Limelight: Every heroine gets a whole chapter to develop before or during their recruitment to the party, except Satsuki and Nozomi who get their developments later in the story, before the branching point.
- Death by Despair: Implied with what happened to the population of Zetsu's world.
- Death Glare: Played for laughs everytime Nozomi wants to reproach Nozomu about something.
- Dream Sequence: The story starts with one with Nozomu dreaming about his past life as Jirol.
- Duel Boss: There are some enforced, but you can invoke this on every boss after the second chapter pitting an All-Rounder against it.
- Dual Wielding:
- Nozomu's Shinken takes the form of a pair of swords.
- Later when in Satsuki's and Narukana's routes, he wields both his original Aurora (now fused permanently as one sword) and Heaven's Cloud simultaneously.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Who's the girl who appears during the prologue? You only see her again after more than half the game is completed.
- Easily Forgiven: Given all the hell he made the party go through, Zetsu pulls a Karma Houdini, even being saved from his fate by Nozomu.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: White beats black and blue, black beats blue and red, blue beats red and green, red beats green and white, and green beats white and black. Every color is associated more strongly with an element, Blue for Ice and Water, Red for fire, Green for Earth, White for light and Black for darkness.
- 11th-Hour Superpower: After Nozomu gets to control Jirol's power freely, either but subjugating him or by him stepping aside.
- Empathic Weapon: All of the Eien Shinken. The lower level ones don't have very powerful wills, and the mid-level ones are usually driven by their instincts to destroy all other Eien Shinken and consume all mana, though they do have their own well-defined personalities. Only the highest level Shinken are capable of resisting their own instincts.
- End of the World as We Know It: Et Ca Repha end game, via Reset Button.
- Everyone Can See It: That Nozomi and Satsuki both like Nozomu, except the man himself.
- Extremity Extremist: Ruputna fights exclusively with kicks.
- Fanservice: Considering the medium, it should be par for the course, but the only explicity fanservicey CG aside from the H scenes is a shot of Ruputna gainaxing while playing basketball with Satsuki and Nozomi.
- Fantastic Racism: Goes both ways between elementals and humans on the Elemental World.
- Fictionary: The language used by the Northern and Southern Gods in the prologue.
- First Girl Wins: Even though she is the last heroine to join and her very existence is suppose to be shrouded in so much secret that Satuski is instead made the cover girl of the game, main heroine Narukana is the first girl the player sees via Nozomu's opening dream sequence.
- Final Speech: Jirol, on Narukana's route, delivers one to both her and Nozomu.
- Flashback: At the beginning of the story, framed as Nozomu having nightmares.
- Gambit Roulette: The Management Gods have access to the Time Tree's Log Field, where data for everything which has ever happened within the Time Tree is recorded. Thus, they are able to predict the actions of the protagonist and his allies.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: Narukana, Nozomu and Euphoria are touted as extremely powerful, head and shoulders above the other characters. This is borne out in their game statistics, they are among your best choices for All-rounders. Especially Narukana, it is actually far less efficient for her to function in a group due to her large selection of powerful skills.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: Most evident in regards to Narukana. In her specific route, she is able to take on Et Ca Repha one-on-one. Although she's quite powerful in gameplay, she's still not powerful enough to kill the god of all creation on her own.
- Genre Savvy: Generally everyone to a greater or lesser degree. Especially Satsuki and Narukana.
- Give Him a Normal Life: In the two routes that Nozomu becomes a Null Eternal, this is what he desires for the rest of the party, specially Nozomi.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Jirol after taking over Nozomu's body.
- Heel Realization: Zetsu after Nozomu frees him from his cursed Orichalcum Name.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: Nozomu, Satsuki, Katima and Zetsu. Also many of the enemy Minions.
- Hospital Hottie: Invoked by Jatzieta, the only one on the party with some knowledge of first aid, turning herself into the school nurse.
- Hollywood Hacking: During Naya's introduction chapter she uses a full-dive magic to interact directly with the server of the tower to stop it from self-destructing.
- 100% Completion: Numerous replays are required in order to obtain all the CGs. Also, for the really dedicated, one can attempt to acquire all the skills available, which requires a grand total of EIGHTEEN PLAYTHROUGHS of the game, six on each difficulty to complete each of the heroines' routes, and with a perfect SS rank on every mission.
- Hyperspace Arsenal: The Shinken. Literally materializes out of thin air whenever its wielder desires.
- Implausible Fencing Powers: Par for the course, given that the weapons themselves are sentient, but Euphoria takes the cake as one of her attacks has her riding her sword as if it was a board to attack the enemies.
- Improbable Age: Naya is the head of the government in the Magic World. The majority of the members of the Brigade are veteran fighters even though they're teenagers.
- Informed Attribute: The game's manual says that Blue characters have the better attack skills, but this is not the case. While in Aselia The Eternal Blue characters most definitely had stronger attacks than most, in Seinarukana they are only slightly above average. This is at its most noticeable with Euphoria, who has a mix of Blue and White skills, and her Blue attack skills aren't as good as the White attack skills.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: Done in order to free Nozomu from Jirol's domination.
- Kaizo Trap: Narukana's route contains one with the final boss. Null Yaga is to be fought solo with Nozomu and there's no way to change this, because of that, if Nozomu is undeleveled victory can become impossible. This is even worse in harder modes from older versions, specially in Super Hard where Nozomu completely lacked % attacks, so to just win a player would need to use up all attacks until almost running out
. This is likely why Narukana's route isn't available in a first playthrough, though when first starting a harder mode she's available anyways, so it might be better to do anyone else's route first (Satsuki's is a good alternative since Null Yaga is also a boss there, but she can be fought with a team, though a player can pick solo Nozomu as well). - Katanas Are Just Better:
- Subverted. Black Minions all wield Katana-like Shinken but aren't actually powerful. However, they all use Iai, a sword technique where the blade is drawn from its sheath and strikes the opponent in one single motion, and immediately re-sheathed, which looks really cool.
- Then there's Zetsu, who wields a katana and is quite simply awesome. However, this is subverted by the fact that his Katana Shinken 'Daybreak' is merely a somewhat inferior copy of Nozomu's Shinken 'Aurora', which is a pair of longswords.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Euphoria (although there are hints that she may be faking it).
- Last Character Syndrome: Averted in Normal mode. The game uses a system where every world only allows you to go up to a specific level, so whenever a new character is added, they'll be around the same level as everyone else. Played very straight in Hard and Super Hard however. Those modes will have the characters be at the level they were in the last playthrough, so at best they'll only be at the level cap of the previous difficulty, so characters who take too long to join will be outclassed by everyone lse. Zetsu and specially Narukana have it worse than everyone, since they're the last characters to join, and will be at best at level 30 while everyone else are level 40 or 50 for Hard mode, or at level 60 while everyone else is around 70 or 80 in Super Hard, so the player will need to leave them at a base with another character so they can level up while the other characters do all the fighting. They do however become pretty powerful once they do catch up, since Zetsu's % skills are perfect to defeat bosses, and Narukana remains a Master of All no matter the difficulty.
- Last Confession Wins: Narukana. She's the last heroine properly introduced, but is the one with the canon ending. Well, it's in the title.
- Last Episode, New Character: Et Ca Repha, the goddess of creation, is the last boss in most of the routes, but she's only mentioned in passing until the second to last chapter.
- Last Stand: Defending the Izumo shrine against the Antibody Weapons.
- Lethal Chef: Satsuki. Katima suggests weaponizing this ability.
- Like Brother and Sister: Nozomu views his relantionship with Nozomi like this, though it can be averted on her route. Nozomi on the other hand is in love with him already at the beginning of the story.
- Limited Move Arsenal: Equip your characters with 3 each of Attack, Defend, and Support skills. Even then, the number of times each specific skill can be used is limited.
- Limited Wardrobe: Everyone wears only their school uniforms. Justified as no one was planning on taking an extended trip that day. Doesn't explain why they didn't pick some up in the various worlds they visit...
- Living Weapon: Narukana is actually a Shinken.
- Loophole Abuse: The strategy Nozomu comes up with to counter the Sovereign Gods. They are using the information saved on the Log Sector of the Time Tree to predict the behaviour of the characters, since everything that happened in the past shapes the people they are today. So he gives the command of the whole attack operation to Euphoria, since she came from outside the Time Tree, the gods don't have enough information on her to create countermeasures.
- Master of All: Narukana. She has very powerful attacks, among the best defensive skills in the games before even getting any route exclusive skills, and pretty good healing and banish skills. Because of that she's better off being alone as an All-Rounder instead of being in a team, and can even be the go-to character to defeat a boss easily. In harder modes she's still pretty useful once she's on the same level as everyone else, since in harder modes you want more % skills, and she has a good one with get Green attack skill.
- Men Can't Keep House: Satsuki is distressed in finding out that Nozomu averts this. He spent so much time in his house without his parents around that he is used to tidying his room later on Monobe.
- Mirror Universe: Mirror World, where everything looks exactly like it does in the Original World, except for the people.
- Multiple Endings: Though it has a True End, there's a total of 5 other endings as well.
- No Body Left Behind: Everyone is made of mana, and upon death their soul no longer binds their body together, so they dissolve back into mana, but that is not a one way street. Some people can be revived depending on the method used.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Each Shinken wielder's Shinjuu (Divine Beast).
- Oblivious to Love: Nozomu takes this trope, cranks it up to eleven, then sticks it to a rocket and blasts it out of the solar system. This being an eroge though, he gets better.
- Official Couple: Taking a look at the name of the game, you can guess who has the canon ending.
- Parental Abandonment: Nozomu's parents were hardly ever around while he was growing up, and at the start of the story he pretty much lives by himself.
- Patient Childhood Love Interest: Nozomi, though her patience is nearing its limit at the beginning of the game.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Jirol had, in the past, destroyed whole worlds. Narukana is implied to be able to do the same, as is Euphoria, and practically every other Eternal in the entire universe.
- Physical God: In the setting Eternals are this, but there are several more lesser gods, including your whole party, except Narukana (Eternity Sword), Euphoria (Eternal) and Satsuki (Vessel of Heaven's Cloud).
- Power Born of Madness: The reason Nozomu can't really tap too much into Jirol's power is because of this.
- Power-Strain Blackout: Happens to Nozomu on several occasions as he draws more and more of Jirol's power. Also happens once each to Nozomi and Katima.
- Princess Carry: Nozomu carries Ruputna this way at the end of chapter 3.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Let's see. We have a normal high school girl, a normal high school boy, a student council president, a glasses wearing ex-Sovereign God, a white haired pretty boy man out of time, a princess, later Queen, a wild child raised by spirits, a wolverine-esque hot blooded boy, a snarking tsundere girl, a Ms. Fanservice, a cyborg, a Token Mini-Moe world leader, another Token Mini-Moe immortal being from another universe, and lastly one of the most powerful eternity swords of the multiverse. And that's only in your party...
- Rain of Arrows: One of Subaru's attacks involves this.
- Really 700 Years Old: Salles and Narukana have been around since before the Time Tree existed. In a certain sense, that makes them older than time itself.
- Rebel Leader: Katima. Even if she says otherwise, she's clearly the heart and soul of the rebels. Officially, Cromway.
- Relationship Upgrade: Happens to all heroines after the rescue of Satsuki from the Log Sector. Though some, like Narukana's, only come into full display during the attack of the final boss.
- Reset Button Ending: Subverted. This is the ending that the Big Bad wants to bring about and the protagonists want to avoid.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Monobe, or rather, Mini-Monobe. Katima suffers from Cuteness Proximity whenever it is around.
- The Rival: Although they are friends and are courteous to each other, neither Satsuki nor Nozomi yield a single inch when it comes to Nozomu, even before the story starts.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Narukana tries this after the entire party is decimated during the finale of her route, but can't win the fight against Yaga because, as a Eternity Sword without a master, she can't bring out her full power.
- Serial Escalation: The plot starts as the kids of Mononobe High trying to get back to their world, and from there keeps upping the ante until they end up fighting the creator of their entire universe.
- Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration: Deliberate integration. On parts of the story that a character isn't available, and a battle occurs, that character can't be used.
- Space Whale: Nozomi's Divine Beast, Monobe, is a whale-like creature, capable of traveling between worlds, carrying Mononobe Academy on its back.
- Starfish Aliens: Averted. After the reference of diferent evolution in diferent worlds made on the previous game, all the sentient species that appear on this one are human or humanoid. Except for the elementals, but they are not the dominant species of the planet they inhabit.
- Story Branch Favoritism: While there are six routes, the game has a clear preference for Nozomi, Satsuki and Narukana, since regardless of the route they get a decent amount of character focus, while Katima, Naya and Ruputna don't get much focus outside of their own routes and neither of them have Yaga as the final boss. Between Nozomi, Satsuki and Narukana, the latter two's endings have the clearer sequel baits with Nozomu and Satsuki becoming Null Eternals and leaving the world tree with Narukana. Satsuki even goes a step further; in covers she has the most focus out of all characters, and every one of the six females who have a route will get 3 new powerful skills in the chapter where you have to save Nozomu from Jirol, and all the other 5 women just randomly get them, while Satsuki's new skills are tied to her being infected with Null mana, so she's the only one who gets a story reason for the new skills.
- The Dragon: Berbalzerd is The Dragon of the Bringers of Light.
- The End of the World as We Know It: What happens if you don't stop Et Ca Repha from resetting the Time Tree.
- The Man Behind the Man:
- The Management Gods to the Bringers of Light.
- Then Et Ca Repha to the Management Gods.
- Theme Music Power-Up: A remixed version of the opening song of the first game plays during the final battle.
- The Multiverse: The Time Tree is just one of the infinite ones in existence.
- The Power of Friendship: Protects Nozomu, Narukana, Satsuki and Euphoria during the final battle in the Narukana route. A real corny moment.
- Timed Mission: While finishing each mission quickly is not absolutely necessary, you do get additional mana and better skills.
- Time Skip: Several epilogues have one. Narukana's is the most outrageous one, taken place millenia later.
- Took a Level in Badass: Happens even within actual gameplay. The acquisition of certain skills can result in your character suddenly being able to take down anything and everything in their path.
- Trapped in Another World: Happens briefly during chapter 2, when the character arrive on the Sword World, and once again later when they start to chase after Zetsu and arrive in a world controlled by and AI.
- True Companions: The Brigade are Nozomu's
- Tsundere:
- Thalia. She's "dere" towards Salles, and "tsun" towards everyone else.
- During her epilogue, Nozomu says that Narukana turns almost like a maiden after he uses her in battle. In contrast, when he stops using her for a long time, she starts to get cranky.
- Two-Teacher School: Enforced. During the events that led Mononobe High to be transformed in a base of operations for the Brigade, the only teacher on the school was Sanae, who was helping the students with preparations for the School Festival. After that she acts more like a go-between for Nozomu's group and the rest of the students than a proper teacher.
- Unwanted Harem: On the other hand, maybe players actually do enjoy the attention...
- Unequal Pairing: Nozomu is a normal high school student and Narukana is one of the most powerfull Eternity Swords of the multiverse.
- You Shall Not Pass!: Nozomu does this in order to protect Naya in the Magic World.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: Berbalzerd is usually considered this. The game has a system with physical and mana attacks, defensive and offensive support skills, and while there are attacks, defensive and support skills that have points in both, Berbalzerd's attacks are either pure physical or pure mana, and the same goes for his defensive skills, and he has a pure mana attack type support skill. To win a player has to know this system and have a character to block whatever element Berbalzerd is going to use, while also attacking with the element he's not defending against, and if available, use support skills to prevent him from using his own support skills. If one fights properly he can even become one of the few bosses you can defeat without taking damage.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Nozomu has a brief bout of conscience during the second chapter about killing the Minions.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: Naya, courtesy of remembering everything about her past lives.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The more power you draw from your sword, the greater the damage done to your mind. It almost engulfs Katima during her introduction.
