Skies of Arcadia/YMMV

"Daikokuya: "Money makes the world go 'round!""
 * Angst? What Angst?: Vyse is this trope crystallized. His hometown is destroyed? His base is destroyed? He gets separated from his friends? He shrugs it off and fixes it.
 * Anticlimax Boss: Baltor the second time around, especially after De Loco.
 * Lord Zivilyn Bane's one of the easier bounty fights, but can be rough if you're not expecting it and go in unprepared.
 * Canon Fodder: Lots of jokes about literal cannon fodder aside, there are a lot of little details throughout the world of Arcadia that the fanbase has pounced on.
 * Cliché Storm/Troperrific: Either, depending on who you ask.
 * Complete Monster: Admiral Galcian is loyal to one thing only: power. When first seen Galcian is the Dragon with an Agenda to the nation of Valua and its empress Teodora. A ruthless man who tries to wipe out Vyse and the heroes at any cost, Galcian pursues an agenda of hunting down moon crystals to enhance his own personal power. After finding the superweapon he's been looking for, Galcian reveals his true colors and uses it on Valua, his own nation. His reasoning is that if he obliterates the most powerful country, the other nations will fall in line. While he is a man capable of inspiring loyalty, Galcian possesses none for anyone but his own power and advancement.
 * Also, De Loco. "Absolute maniac" doesn't begin to describe this guy..
 * Crowning Music of Awesome - Kingdom of Ixa'taka is in this troper's opinion literally one of the catchiest songs ever.
 * Cult Classic: Few have heard of the game and even fewer have played it, but damn near everyone who did loved it.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Many minor characters make the cut, such as Belleza and Gregorio, as well as crew members such as Don, Hans, and Lawrence. However, most fans would agree that the best example is Gilder, a womanizing, Badass Longcoat and Cool Shades wearing Gunslinger. He even acts as The Lancer for Vyse. Ilchymis is liked by anyone who has taken the trouble to find him and use the ability to buy an unlimited number of attribute boosts from him.
 * Game Breaker:
 * Justice Shield halves the damage from the majority of attacks.
 * Delta Shield blocks all magic attacks and is invaluable against instant death attacks. It does unfortunately also block your own healing spells and the like, but the functionally identical items work just fine.
 * Pirates' Wrath deals massive damage for a not-unreasonable amount of SP.
 * Most Bounty fights can be easily dealt with by spamming Justice Shield and Delta Shield every round until you max out your SP meter, and then casting the normally Awesome but Impractical Prophecy for massive damage. It probably won't TPK your opponent, but they'll definitely be seriously hurting and easy pickings to finish off.
 * Items in general can replicate any magic effect, are cheap and can be bought anywhere, consume no SP and get around Delta Shield. The biggest game-breaker items are the inexpensive complete kits available later in the game, which completely heal your ship. Even with them, though, the final ship boss is STILL extremely hard if you didn't take special steps to get super-rare ship armor.
 * Aika's multi-enemy fire attacks are pretty game-breaking early on, but less so as the game progresses.
 * Goddamned Bats: Loopers, in all their forms. They're nearly impossible to hit with normal attacks, are immune to magic, their defence power is high enough that Lambda Burst usually deals 0 damage to them, they frequently buff the other enemies in the battle, and often run away before you can actually hit them with a Special attack and/or kill them, especially early in the game. Ironically, they're more likely to die if they attack you than if you attack them, since your counter-attack rate is likely to be higher than your hit rate against them.
 * Skull Shield lets you pwn Loopers easily, as noted under: Game-Breaker. Vyse's "Rain of Swords" also kills Loopers, since it deals physical damage.
 * Goddamned Bosses: Barta and Rupee. Daikokuya also counts.
 * Hell Is That Noise: The BGM for the Dark Rift and Deep Sky. It sounds soothing, but has odd dark undertones that turn it from relaxing into unsettlingly ambient. The oddly triumphant-sounding part at the end of the loop adds to the eeriness. Also, it's not on the OST.
 * The Jimmy Hart Version: The Armada Battle theme sounds very similar to the first part of Mega Man 8's Wily Tower 3.
 * Magnificent Bastard: Galcian still controls.
 * Moe: Belle.
 * Moral Event Horizon:
 * In the beginning of the game, Alfonso kills his Vice-Captain in an effort to keep his reputation intact. It perfectly sums up what kind of villains you'll be dealing with in this game.
 * Galcian crosses this when.
 * This is mentioned backhandedly in a conversation with a minor NPC, but Ramirez gets one when.
 * Most Wonderful Sound: Mew...mew...mewmew...mewmewmewmewmewmewmew -- received (1) Cham!
 * Needs More Love: People have been demanding a sequel for almost a decade now. We were given a slight glimmer of hope when the trio showed up as major cameos in Valkyria Chronicles...
 * One True Threesome: Not an unheard-of interpretation of the main trio's relationship, given how close they are as a trio by the end of the story. The game proper doesn't have anything conclusive to say about romance among them in any case, which is probably why Ship-to-Ship Combat is very rare among the fanbase.
 * Ship Sinking: You do shoot down a lot of them... Okay, sorry. The actual trope is not used, as there's no explicit romance between the main trio.
 * Ship-to-Ship Combat: Literally! The actual trope is averted; since there are reasonable arguments for and against all three sides of the Love Triangle, you can ship whoever without Internet Backdraft ensuing.
 * That One Attack:
 * , Silver Nightmare, which allows him to possess a member of your party for one turn and use the character's own offensive S-Moves against the rest of the party. The move has 100% accuracy and automatically preempts every other attack and defensive S-Move; it can range from moderately annoying (if he possesses Fina and uses Lunar Winds) to very, very dangerous (if he possesses Vyse and uses either Rain of Swords or Pirate's Wrath). Most of his other S-Moves cause high damage, but are relatively easily countered.
 * Legendary Punch and Berserk Rupee if you were stupid enough to attack Rupee first.
 * How the bloody hell did Lupen build a Moonstone Cannon?
 * The Ixa'ness Demons' Chak Mal, which deals heavy damage to all characters and often inflicts various status effects.
 * Golden Flurry. Deals relatively high damage to all characters and has a good chance of inflicting Confuse.


 * Pretty much any of Piastol's attacks, but the most points go to Tempest Dance.
 * That One Boss:
 * Belleza.
 * Vigoro.
 * Lapen. Let's see... he summons three durable mooks at a time that can each cause relatively high damage. He has an immensely powerful area attack that can easily knock out several characters, even with damage-mitigating special moves in play. He has a single-character attack which usually causes instant death. Good thing you saved an Aura of Valor so that you can instantly get a Prophecy off on him. Right? ...Right?
 * That One Level: Moon Stone Mountain. Feel free to rage at the memories of falling through floor tiles and having to walk all the way back again. Ixa'Taka generally is probably the worst-paced part of the game, with two big maze-like dungeons full of difficult enemies and light on save points, plus a village that, while colorful and impressive, can be difficult to navigate.