Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity

Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity is an obscure PlayStation 2 Turn-Based Strategy Role Playing Game published by Atlus and developed by the even more obscure "Pinegrow Studios". The game is a Spiritual Successor to Hoshigami Ruining Blue Earth: They were developed by the same people, use many of the same gameplay conceits and share a similar Green Aesop plot. The developers learned from Hoshigami's poor reception and averted that game's rather suicidal Nintendo Hardness. Unfortunately, the result is almost Nintendo Easy... but hey, Tropes Are Not Bad, and the game has been lauded as a good "gateway episode" into Strategy RPGs for that very reason.

The setting is somewhat interesting: The world of "Solum" has been engulfed by a corrosive mist called "Miasma", which threatens to bring about The End of the World as We Know It. High Priestess Lumena, leader of the setting's Corrupt Church, has begun to preach that the Miasma is god's will and everyone should just lie down and wait to die. The Warlord Dignus has taken the opportunity to go Ax Crazy and travel the world wreaking slaughter: anyone he meets who isn't willing to fight clearly deserves to die. And an alchemist, Viser, is trying to save the world using his inventions--though he keeps having to kill off benign wildlife called "Spirits" to do it. The Hero, Spero, is his apprentice, who believes that it should be possible to Take a Third Option (well, a fourth in this case) and save the world without causing any more harm. This takes more tangible form in the person of Linea, a "Shaman" who can commune with Spirits and claims that, if they can hunt down the "Gate of Eternity" and open it, more Spirits will come in and set everything right. As you can see, the setting devolves into a serious case of Cliché Storm, with little exempt from it; among the few exceptions are Avis, a prince who, for some reason, wears a dress; Linea herself, who manages to avoid being a White Magician Girl, Rebellious Princess or Yamato Nadeshiko despite being the game's female lead; and Viper, an Ax Crazy Psycho for Hire with most of the funny lines.

Gameplay allows the player to deploy up to six characters for battle. There is no Class and Level System in this game (well, technically there is, but it's so linear and non-interactive that it might as well not exist), but that's okay: the "Action Points" system, returning from Hoshigami Ruining Blue Earth, makes up for it. Every action you could possibly commit takes up a certain amount of AP, and you can mix-and-match any way you want, as long as you've got enough AP remaining in your budget. This gives you enormous flexibility and depth in character disposition: Spero can burn off all his AP moving, or attack three times, or go a short distance and then attack a couple times, or even go a short distance, hit once and then retreat again. You can't overburn like you could in Hoshigami, so watch out: if Spero runs too far forward, he might not be able to do anything else once he gets there. Finally, you can also choose to burn extra AP at the end of a turn, so as to seed the character into the who-goes-next turn queue at an opportune moment.

The main gameplay gimmick was "Zone Effects" and their various uses. Each character would be surrounded by a configuration of yellow panels, which indicated their zone of influence, and could apply various effects to this zone; Spero's, for instance, increased all his allies' Dodge rates, while Dignus' inflicts various Standard Status Effects on his enemies. If two (or more) characters had a foe within their zones, they could initiate a Combination Attack for extra damage; if those characters had plot significance with each other, they would throw an extra-special attack animation for even more extra damage. Unlike most gimmicks, the enemy can—and does—use this feature against you.

This game provides examples of the following tropes:


 * Absurdly High Level Cap: You can level your characters up to lvl 99...which seems reasonable enough until you realize you don't need to be over 50 to finish the game. The point of 99 is to finish the optional Bonus Dungeon.
 * An Axe to Grind: Gallant, Viper, and the generic Berserker classes.
 * Ax Crazy: Dignus; Croire; Viper, to a much greater extent
 * Apologetic Attacker: Lumena and Priere.
 * The Archer: Linea, Criore, and the generic Archer classes.
 * Artificial Limbs: Adara
 * Awesome but Impractical: A number of spells in the game really veer in this direction. Enemy Croire The Archer has a Rain of Arrows mega-attack which can hit everyone in your party.. But the attack drains one third of his MP. The attack only hits for about of you 25% HP (assuming your characters don't dodge it, which half of them will), and whose damage can be healed by much cheaper heal spells.
 * Belligerent Sexual Tension: Grey and Adara (or at least it can be read that way.)
 * Berserk Button: Adara's arm is a major sore point for her.
 * Beta Couple: Avis and Lumena
 * BFS: Avis.
 * Bishonen: Avis, who for good or ill looks like the Disney version of the title character from Alice in Wonderland.
 * Blade on a Stick: Grey
 * Catgirl: Tia. (Just a girl wearing kitten jammies, from the looks of it.)
 * Corrupt Church - The Aeque, whose two branches either subscribe to Suicidal Pacifism or are Omnicidal Maniacs.
 * Critical Encumbrance Failure: Each character had a "Weight" stat, which impacted how many AP it took to travel one square, determined by the modernity of their gear versus their current stats.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Grey
 * Death Is Cheap: Played very straight. While there's no Revive spell, there is no permanent penalty whatsoever to losing a character in battle, besides a small drop in their LUCK stat. Keep in mind that this is a game by the team that made Hoshigami Ruining Blue Earth, wherein every death was either a Final Death or an immediate Game Over.
 * Death Ray: Golems have these
 * Death Seeker: The apparent philosophy of the Aeque, who just want "a peaceful end". (The Nox, on the other hand, interpret the state of the world as "God is angry at humanity" and have become Omnicidal Maniacs.)
 * Defeat Means Friendship: Jade, Echidna and Viser for the good guys; in a rare works-for-the-bad-guys example, Croire to Dignus.
 * Doomed Hometown: Spero's hometown and Avis' home nation. You manage to prevent Linea's hometown from one of these.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Viper, a boss defeated in Chapter 1, is perhaps the most memorable character in the game, mostly because he actually has any sort of personality (and his voice actor decided to ham it up).
 * Escort Mission: Any mission where Tia is a Guest Star Party Member has an element of this: If she dies, she's Lost Forever. Fortunately, she's quite the fighter to begin with. Unfortunately, one of these missions has her as an enemy...
 * Gainaxing: My god, Echidna...
 * Guide Dang It: recruiting Viser. This editor is still not sure how it's done... and he wrote one of GameFAQs guides. (The other three Optional Party Members can also be Lost Forever, but getting Viser requires tons of work and Level Grinding.)
 * Improbable Aiming Skills: Arrows can shoot around corners and through obstacles as long as the target is in range.
 * Item Crafting
 * Katanas Are Just Better: Spero even dual-wields them. Echidna uses them too.
 * Knife Nut: Jade
 * Level Grind: made easy by training facilities, the "Catacomb of Trials", accessible from any town.
 * Luck-Based Mission: Getting Jade's ultimate weapon requires winning several hands of cards in a row at the Minigame Zone.
 * Narm: The voice-acting is... lackluster.
 * Ominous Pipe Organ: The battle with  and   takes place on one of these.
 * Player Mooks: One each for all of the named characters you see here. While it's fun to collect them all, once you get your sixth named character after Battle 10, you'll basically never use them again.
 * Plucky Girl: Linea
 * Power Fist: Tia; Adara, to a lesser extent, whose combat animation is just smacking people with her metal arm.
 * Power Trio: Spero, Adara and Grey as Harry, Hermione and Ron.
 * Psycho for Hire: Viper
 * Random Encounters: averted
 * Real Men Wear Pink: that ultra-Golem...
 * Scenery Porn
 * Sprite Polygon Mix
 * Squishy Wizard: Averted; physical attacks are a perfectly respectable combat option for Adara, Prier and Lumena.
 * Suicidal Pacifism: The Aeque teach that everyone should just accept that the mist is going to consume everything. While previous attempts to save the world haven't gone very well, this results in Apathetic Citizens who not only won't help you at all, but will actively obstruct your every move.
 * That One Boss: the Pink Golem. While he's not any more difficult than any previous golems, he will One-Hit Kill Spero if you let him, so there's no margin for error. Plus, if you game over, you have to fight another battle before this one without being allowed to save in between, which is just insulting.
 * The Jimmy Hart Version: The main battle theme resembles part of the Indiana Jones theme.
 * The Stoic: Gallant
 * Stripperiffic: High Priestess Lumena's costume consists of an unbelted robe over... a one-piece swimsuit?
 * Unsound Effect: Most characters have footstep sound effects when they walk. Lumena has this godawful * WHOMP-WHOMP-WHOMP!* noise.
 * Verbal Tic: Tia. "Nya?"
 * Walking Shirtless Scene: Avis
 * We Cannot Go on Without You: Spero. Keep in mind that a large-enough Team Attack can be a One-Hit Kill.
 * Whip It Good: Nebula
 * Yamato Nadeshiko: Adara.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Grey. (Non-Indicative Name, clearly.)
 * You Killed My Father: Echidna to Spero. (Also has Spero's dad's Sword of Plot Advancement.)