Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable



Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Battle of Aces is a Fighting Game, developed by Witchcraft (composed of the people who made Wild Arms) and released for the PlayStation Portable by Namco Bandai in 2010.

As the name suggests, it's based on the Lyrical Nanoha franchise, specifically the second season Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha As. It is set in an Alternate Timeline where Reinforce was not deleted at the end of the series. Because of this, the corrupted defence program of the Book of Darkness soon returns, shedding "Dark Fragments" that take the form of Evil Knockoffs of the main cast. At the head of this clone army are the "Materials": three super-powerful clones of Nanoha, Fate and Hayate who have gained sentience.

A sequel, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears of Destiny, was released for PSP on December 22, 2011. It takes place three months after The Battle of Aces, starting when two mysterious warriors arrive from the future. One of them is searching for the revived Materials, whose personalities have grown from the one-dimensional Omnicidal Maniacs they were in the first game. The other is trying to stop her.

Meanwhile, the Materials are searching for something called the "Unbreakable Darkness", which seems to be linked to a whole new outbreak of Dark Fragments. Not only are these new Dark Fragments twisting time and space, pulling people from the past and future to the present age, but they are capable of copying long-dead people from the memories of the mages involved.

The Battle of Aces provides examples of:

 * Alternate Timeline
 * Autobots Rock Out: One of the possible final battle music is an electric guitar version of A's OP Eternal Blaze.
 * Beam Spam: In The Battle of Aces Hayate and her counterpart Material-D have ranged attacks like this.
 * Fate, her counterpart Material-L, and in particular Chrono have a faster rate of fire for their weakest range attacks then any other character.
 * Let's not forget about Nanoha and her counterpart Material-S as well. She's not Sailor Beam Spam for nothing after all.
 * Reinforce has one attack like this as well, but she can fire three beams at once.
 * Breaking Out: Minigame available for DLC. A NSFW minigame.
 * Break Meter: Doubles as your Mana Meter. Be careful while Beam Spamming.
 * Charged Attack: Several ranged attacks come with a slower, stronger form when you hold down their respective button.
 * Counter Attack: Everyone has one at melee range. Zafira has one in ranged combat too.
 * Disappears Into Light: The Dark Pieces after defeating them.
 * Dream People: The non-Material Dark Pieces, which are copies of Nanoha and crew based on their memories, thoughts, and wishes during A's. They fade away upon losing.
 * Evil Sounds Deep: Material-S has a deeper voice than Nanoha.
 * Evil Twin / Palette Swap: The three Aces each get one.
 * Hayate is opposed by Material-D, the Ruler of Darkness, whose Barrier Jacket has dark grey where Hayate's is white, along with purple for the inner layer and shoes, as well as being platinum blonde-ish. She also lacks the original's Nice Hat.
 * Nanoha is opposed by Material-S, the Starlight Destroyer, whose Barrier Jacket is mainly black/dark purple and crimson, with Luciferion, her version of Raising Heart, being red with a blue crystal.
 * Fate is opposed by Material-L, the Thunderblade Assailant, who has light blue hair instead of blonde, her Barrier Jacket has blue where Fate's was red and her version of Bardiche has a blue crystal.
 * Fighting Game
 * Gotta Kill Them All: The Dark Pieces.
 * Humanoid Abomination: The Materials, which are remnants of the Darkness of the Book of Darkness taken human form.
 * In Spite of a Nail: In the original Reinforce's ending in Battle of Aces,.
 * Invulnerable Attack: Using Full Drive makes you invulnerable to any attack during its initial activation.
 * Law of Chromatic Superiority: Material-S's Barrier Jacket is mainly black and crimson compared to Nanoha's white and blue, and she's the stronger of the two.
 * Last Episode Theme Reprise: See Autobots Rock Out.
 * Let's You and Him Fight: Mostly instigated by Vita accidentally mistaking someone for a Dark Piece (the reason why Fate fights her in her route).
 * Limit Break: Full Drive Burst.
 * Mana Meter
 * Mirror Match: Justified in Story Mode by the existence of the Dark Pieces, which are copies from the heroes based on their memories and wishes during the time of A's.
 * Nanoha Is About To Shoot You: Look at the boxart.
 * Noblewoman's Laugh: Material-D, most obviously when she connects with a Counter Attack.
 * Omnicidal Maniac: The Materials, who exist to bring forth the tranquil darkness and the chaos of destruction.
 * Secret Character: The Materials, which are unlocked by completing the Story Modes (including the two "Warning" stages) of three specific characters per Material.
 * Sound Test: Available in the Character Viewer under Archive.
 * Sprint Meter
 * Super Mode: Full Drive, which temporarily gives you infinite mana and unlocks your Limit Break. If you equip the Drive EX (Critical) skill, it will also increase your attack damage while active.
 * Super Title 64 Advance: Gets Portable in the title for being in the PSP.
 * Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors: Attack beats Throw. Throw beats Counter. Counter beats Attack.
 * Title Drop: Fate's story path ends with her saying the title of her chapter ("When the cherry blossoms are in bloom") in response to Arf asking her when she will tell Lindy her decision regarding her offer to adopt her.
 * You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Nanoha says this when Arf suggests that Fate might have turned out like Material-L if she hadn't met Nanoha, saying that Fate is a stronger person than that and with Arf, she is not alone. Both Fate and Arf are quite grateful to hear this.

The Gears of Destiny additionally provides examples of:

 * Adaptational Badass: While most of the characters are just as badass as they are in canon, Yuuno's surprising combat ability comes as a shock. During his story mode, he manages to not only defeat the Lieze twins (who were able to steal Fate's Linker Core, and tie up Nanoha, Fate and the Wolkenritter in canon), but also Material-S, Vivio and Amita  not bad for someone who was Demoted to Extra in the series proper.
 * Alternate Character Reading: The Materials from Battle of Aces were originally saddled with kanji that seemed to describe what they are rather than serve as proper names. When they were announced to return in Gears of Destiny, these kanji were given katakana to show that, yes, those are their actual names: Stern the Destructor (星光の殲滅者), Levi the Slasher (雷刃の襲撃者), and Lord Dearche (闇統べる王).
 * And Zoidberg: Touma's reveal for the game came off as this, considering how much more of the page Vivio and Einhart took up.
 * Bad Boss: The Unbreakable Darkness, who after exchanging pleasantries, promptly kills the loyal Materials after they successfully revived her. Not that it's really her fault. As an Eldritch Abomination, she can't control the death and destruction she causes.
 * Be Careful What You Wish For: Lord Dearche always wished for power. When she finally got it due to, she responds by screaming in anguish.
 * Boisterous Bruiser: Levi the Slasher, in contrast to Fate, is loud and loves nothing more than having fun with her life, may it be from adventures or from fighting strong enemies.
 * Complete Immortality: The Unbreakable Darkness
 * Conservation of Ninjutsu: Justified with the Materials, since when there's only one of them, she gets to horde all the overflowing energy. This annoyed Lord Dearche since she was winning against the protagonists when her subordinates got revived, causing her Power Levels to decrease by a lot.
 * Cool Big Sis: ...and HOW!
 * Also referred to Signum as "Signum-neesan".
 * Death Seeker: The Unbreakable Darkness, who wants to be killed but is too Nigh Invulnerable to get killed.
 * Eldritch Abomination: The Unbreakable Darkness
 * Expy:
 * The Nanoha games are being developed by the people who made Wild Arms. With that in mind, Amitie Florian is practically a mish-mash of Wild Arms protagonists Rudy, Virginia, Jude, and Dean. As part of the story she even have the move, Accelerator.
 * In addition, the dying world of Eltria is Filgaia in all but name.
 * For Want of a Nail: The first time fighting U-D her percentage to full power is different depending on who you picked to fight her. 5% for Hayate, 6% for Reinforce.
 * Fun with Acronyms: The name of the Limited Special Collectors' Ultimate Edition for Gears of Destiny is "GOD BOX".
 * Genre Savvy: Einhart and Vivio quickly realize that they've been brought back to the past, and try as much as they can to avoid screwing up the past.
 * Good Thing You Can Heal: The Materials
 * Idiots Cannot Catch Colds: Kyrie references this after Amita tells her that she resisted the virus through Guts and Hot Blood!
 * Idiot Hero: Amita, who seems to have watched a little too many Toku shows and believes that Hot Blood and Guts are all you need. Her idiocy actually causes causes a good amount of Poor Communication Kills, delaying what should have been an easy alliance with the old heroes.
 * Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: How Unbreakable Darkness attacks various characters
 * Kid From the Future: Vivio during the time of Vi Vid is one of the playable characters here.
 * Let's You and Him Fight: Still happens with characters thinking the other one is a Dark Piece. Vita didn't learn the last time.
 * Look Behind You!: Used by Vivio to run away from Yuuno after their fight.
 * Meta Humor: You can now play as Vita on your Vita. Heh.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Material-S's Device, Luciferion. This may be a Shout Out to the humorous fan theory that Raising Heart is actually the driving (destructive) force behind Nanoha's reputation as the "White Devil" or "Demon Cannon Girl".
 * Material-L's Vulnificus isn't much more fluffy-sounding. Dearche, despite being the most Obviously Evil of the trio, has the rather mildly-named Yersinia Kruz in comparison.
 * One Woman Army: Linith, as she.
 * Original Generation: The Florian sisters, Kyrie and Amitie. Kudakeenu Yami - The Unbreakable Darkness.
 * Playable Epilogue: Chapter X, a Denouement Episode that could only be accessed after winning all of the pre-climax fights against the Unbreakable Darkness in all routes.
 * Playing with Fire: Material-S gains fire based attacks.
 * Power Creep, Power Seep: The travel through time is causing Tohma's Tome of the Silver Cross to malfunction, which conveniently shuts down the Anti-Magic and other abilities that would make him broken in the A's timeline. Reinforce returns, but is slowly dying, which explains the Nerfing she got here. On the other end of the spectrum, Kris and Asteon turned out to be capable of helping Vivio and Einhart gain limited flight capabilities, explaining why they're able to fight in mid-air here when they couldn't in Vivid.
 * :, first by a character recognizing them as not human, then by losing her arm while confronting the Big Bad,.
 * Sealed Evil in a Can: Remember the Book of Darkness? Turns out, it was being used to seal an even bigger Eldritch Abomination than the Darkness of the Book of Darkness.
 * SNK Boss: U-D in her Final Boss battle. Her attacks has ridiculous priority, more reach than the staff-using characters, does serious damage, and are fast. Combine this with invulnerability to normal attacks, and you have a sudden and overwhelming urge to introduce your PSP to the floor the hard way.
 * Survive the first round, and then the next character you choose is basically the SNK boss against U-D, as she no longer has her god armor and most everyone has a powered-up form to fight against U-D, turning the SNK boss battle into a fairly easy slug-fest.
 * Spinning Piledriver: Arf's Limit Break
 * Super Move Portrait Attack
 * Super Prototype: are the first models of the Eltrian Gears.
 * Terminator Twosome: Amitie and Kyrie Florian
 * Time Machine: Naturally, it's identified as a Lost Logia.
 * Time Police: According to Amita, this is the role that the Florian sisters were supposed to take, based on the wishes of their father.
 * Time Travel
 * Token Evil Teammate: Lord Dearche, who unlike the other Materials, was still planning to go all Omnicidal Maniac once she gained the unlimited powers of the Unbreakable Darkness.
 * Trailers Always Spoil: Black Knight Touma was reveal in the second trailer before it happened in Force.
 * Throw the Book At Them: Inverted, In the current Promo Video Hayate used her book to block a sword strike from Kyrie.
 * Kinda funny how in Magical Battle Arena had her using the book to attack.
 * Was Once a Man: is revealed to have once been a human named Yuri Evelvine.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: Just where are Lindy and Amy during this entire incident?
 * "With Our Swords" Scene: If you choose Kyrie for the first stage of the final battle against the Unbreakable Darkness then choose Amita for the second round, you'll get a scene where Kyrie hands Amita her Variant Zapper, which she had recharged.
 * The Worf Barrage: ... and dealt practically no damage to the Unbreakable Darkness
 * The Worf Barrage: ... and dealt practically no damage to the Unbreakable Darkness