Battle Moon Wars



Battle Moon Wars is a Doujin game made by the group Werk. It is, as the name suggests, a Pastiche in the style of Super Robot Wars.

Take the three major facets of the Nasuverse: Tsukihime, Fate/stay night and Kara no Kyoukai. Then mix them together into a Massive Multiplayer Crossover, and add a duo of original characters on top. Through four acts, what starts as a not-so simple maidnapping explodes into a new Grail War, as one by one, a mysterious enemy is bringing back defeated villains from Nasuverse past, with shiny new power boosts to boot.

Battle Moon Wars is notable for successfully blending Nasuverse canon together, and pulling together a unique story of its own (Word of God about power levels --or several of them existing together-- be damned!). Yes, even Phantasmoon stealing her staff from Caster is from the official artbooks.

Translation Patch so far can be found here.

--- Contains the following tropes:


 * All There in the Manual: You have read/seen Kara no Kyoukai, played the Heaven's Feel version of Fate Stay Night (which was not in the anime), played Melty Blood, played Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, played Kagetsu Tohya, and read Fate/Zero, right? Actually, the game is pretty good at explaining the major bits, but the sheer Backstory is overwhelming.
 * For example, the reason that Saber was able to defeat  Even more telling is the Word of God via interview that Saber's Excalibur as the type of attack that is able to
 * Anti-Villain:
 * Art Evolution: The game was released in four episodes over an extended period. The quality of the animation and sprites improves drastically as the game goes on. Compare Haruna's attacks when she first starts the game, and then one of her attacks after getting upgraded in Act 3.
 * Now that the 'Perfect Edition' is out, several of the old attacks have been retouched, and among others, Haruna, Takumi, and Nanaya Shiki have been completely redrawn and reworked, now having some of the best looking attacks in the game. Sadly, despite occasionally redrawing the old sprites for some of the new moves, Werk never bothered to completely replace the old sprites. As such, if you do a new move with a character who was there from the beginning (such as 17 Dissection with Shiki), you can actually see the sudden shift in sprites. It's really rather lazy looking.
 * Artificial Stupidity: You know those black spheres near Kuu that use field attacks? If one of your party members - even one they can't hit - is in their range, they will attack, and hit a few of their allies. It is possible to kill the Big Bad without ever directly attacking her.
 * Ass Pull:
 * Back From the Dead: ....most of the villains from the various Nasuverse.
 * Badass Adorable: Every player character, quite frankly. They're slightly less messed up than in the source material, and the visual aesthetic dilutes much of the original darkness.
 * Becoming the Mask: Kohaku's goofy persona was a creation to hide her trauma at repeated child abuse. In Tsukihime she's an Yandere who killed her emotions and just acted silly to manipulate others. Somewhere between Kagetsu Tohya and Melty Blood; she is depicted as at least partially being really that way. Oh, she still manipulates others, but it's less soulless. Given that this game is via Melty Blood Continuity, it's not entirely certain what in the mythical Satsuki Arc caused that.
 * Even in this game, Kohaku's first scene was plotting the "Tohno Family Takeover Plan" and she initially welcomed Saber because "one should never look a gift minion in the mouth." However, Saber grew into her Morality Pet. Heck, even if the original Tsukihime, Kohaku stopped nefarious doings when someone other than Hisui gave her love and loyalty.
 * She's still wily, though, as Stage 53 shows.
 * The Battle Didn't Count: Much like Super Robot Wars, many of early bosses just ignore it if you drive their HP to 0 (even if their battle screen sprite comments you killed them and you get experience!) and just unleash their nefarious plan anyway.
 * Be Yourself: Part of the lesson that Shiki Ryogi gives to Tohno Shiki in gaining strength. There's no need to fight his origins as a Nanaya; merely master it. Kill one's enemies and don't kill one's friends.
 * Symmetrically, when Shiki accepts himself, Nanaya starts accepting himself too. In Kagetsu Tohya, he's infuriated to be created a "mass murderer" in Shiki's dream world. Nobody there was real, so the only person he can kill is Shiki; so he can't be a "mass" murderer. When Shiki has his revelation, Nanaya stops caring about killing other people and only wants to kill Shiki or be killed by him.
 * BFG: Ciel's Seventh Holy Scripture is kind of iffy since it's not an actual gun (though it's frequently listed under this trope elsewhere, and looks the part if nothing else), but Natsuki wields an anti-tank rifle, which definitely fits. Also examples of Small Girl, Big Gun
 * Big Brother Mentor: Takumi places himself into this role; giving advice, supporting, teasing, and ocassionally scolding Shiki and Akiha as need be. His comparisons of them to his little sister at home who is their age clinches it.
 * Big Damn Heroes: So very much. Given the source material, it's to be expected. Everyone will suddenly pull someone else's bacon out of the fire at some point.
 * Bleached Underpants: Instead of being someone whose only way of giving Mana was blood and other fluid exchange that a Synchronizer can give; and the typical way for a Servant to receive from a non-Mage; Kohaku somehow has a Ley Line (which supposedly requires years of training to create) with Saber that simply transmits Mana through proximity. Saber only once in the beginning notes that somehow Kohaku has "something similar enough to Mana" and Kohaku wonders if that's her Synchronizer status.
 * The game as a whole, considering it borrows all of its canon from games or novels originally rated adult, manages to be Teen rated content wise at absolute worst, partially due to the artstyle and partially due to the nature of the Compressed Adaptation of the various plots.
 * Blessed with Suck: Haruna has the power to see possible futures. ALL possible futures. If unsealed, she would be immediately besieged with seeing the countless ways everyone will eventually die. This Vision also makes her particularly weak to The Corruption.
 * Bonus Dungeon: Have fun dealing with the "Tohno Family Takeover Plan" should you get all Battle Masteries.  This does, however, unlock those extra abilities in New Game+; as well as a special item that increases all stats.
 * Breaking the Fourth Wall: Arcueid, usually when in Magical Girl form.
 * Colony Drop: One of Red Arcueid's attacks involves ripping the moon out of the sky and dropping it on her hapless target.
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience:
 * Cool Sword: In a universe filled with Cool Swords; Excalibur, Caliburn, Ea, ect. Takumi manages to compete with the Futsu-no-Mitama, an epic plasma fire Magitek two-handed monstrosity straight out of Japanese mythology.
 * "This was the first sword to kill a god. Fortunately, a Heroic Spirit is less than that."
 * The Corruption: Oh, take your pick. We've got Nero Chaos, Angra Mainyu, and then the stagnation happening in Misaki city. It's powerful enough to make Haruna physically sick and prompts her Heroic BSOD later on.
 * Cross Dresser: You can make male characters wear maid dresses or Ciel's vestment. You can even make them wear several at once. How that works is anybody's guess.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Caren. Interestingly, this is more her Doujinshi Little Miss Snarker personality than Fate/Hollow Ataraxia. She starts getting her original personality back as the plot goes into the Ataraxia plotline, but she's still...dry. Her apparent inability to change facial expressions doesn't help this image.
 * Lancer's even better at this. Ciel and oddly enough Hisui (Mainly regarding her sister) get numerous moments of Deadpan Snarkiness.
 * Demoted to Extra:
 * Assassin: There's even a dummied out Assassin card that increased Arms and critical hits. Alas, no Assassin, no Samurai card to take from him.
 * Kotomine. Every other Big Bad and Disc One Final Boss in the 'verse showed up for the party but nobody invited the Final Boss of two out of three of Fate/stay night's routes?
 * Dynamic Difficulty: Like in Super Robot Wars, it has Battle Masteries, optional challenges for each stage, do them and the difficulty goes up.
 * Swords Are Better With Spinning: Saber Lily's main attack involves creating a second sword out of the back of Caliburn, and basically spinning the enemy to death. And it is awesome.
 * Evil Is Not a Toy: Averted with Sakura, who starts using Angra Mainyu to power her attacks after her arms upgrade in Act 4.
 * Evil Twin: Shiki Nanaya is one of the beings brought to life by the incident. Ciel speculates he's a Tatari clone, but Shiki thinks he's something more. Note, he uses a knife similar to Shiki Ryougi's; not Seven Nights and cannot see the Lines of Death like the one from the Melty Blood games; this is a more direct reference to the Kagetsu Tohya version.
 * Later, after learning how to overcome his darkness and defeating that Nanaya, Shiki does fight a copy of Nanaya; and notes how it was much weaker than his previous nemesis. Also, Tatari later states it can't be a Master, and Nanaya was Archer's Master.
 * Expansion Pack: A Fan-made Expansion Pack named 'Battle Moon Wars: After The Tale' is in construction. It features non-Type Moon characters such as Shana, Nanoha Takamachi, Fate Testarossa, Vita and Signum, Sakura Kinomoto and Keroberos, and currently on the plan... Touhou characters.
 * Not to mention a generic enemy that...well, has a very NICE BOAT.
 * Expy: The fact that several characters are Expies of each other is lampshaded a few times, such as when Touko points out that Shiki Tohno is very similar in appearance to Mikiya Kokutou (from Kara no Kyoukai) and Rin remarks that Kohaku and Sakura are similar, as they both share Yandere tendencies and.
 * In fact, the Fate/stay night crew are unable to recognize that SHIKI is not actually Shinji Matou; something to his extreme irritation. "Stop calling me that!"
 * Fan Service: Any female character's Overly-Long Fighting Animation has a good chance of featuring this at some point. Special mention has to go to Shirou and Sakura's combination attack, which features Sakura temporarily changing into a revealing dress that'd be fanservicey enough by itself, and then includes Gainaxing and teases Wardrobe Malfunction in several shots.
 * There's also the Shiki-Shiki combo attack that quite blatantly shows off Ryougi's ass.
 * Fantasy Kitchen Sink: ...well, let's see, the game opens up with a Mad Scientist Meido who accidentally summons a female King Arthur. This is interrupted by a vampire kidnapping the other Meido, so King Arthur's Meido Master sends her Robot after them; and while the chase is on they're joined by a Mage and the Vampire Moon Princess; who has decided to use her awesome Reality Warper abilities to become a Magical Girl for giggles. This is just stage 3.
 * Final Speech:
 * Fantasy Kitchen Sink: ...well, let's see, the game opens up with a Mad Scientist Meido who accidentally summons a female King Arthur. This is interrupted by a vampire kidnapping the other Meido, so King Arthur's Meido Master sends her Robot after them; and while the chase is on they're joined by a Mage and the Vampire Moon Princess; who has decided to use her awesome Reality Warper abilities to become a Magical Girl for giggles. This is just stage 3.
 * Final Speech:


 * Food as Bribe: Kohaku generally only relies on this to get Saber to do anything.
 * Fragile Speedster: Tohno Shiki, Lancer, most Real-type characters.
 * Fusion Dance: Roa + SHIKI = RoSHIaKI the ninja!!! Yes really.
 * Gaia's Vengeance: The Earth itself recruits
 * Gainaxing: Sakura in Act 2.
 * Giant Space Flea From Nowhere:
 * Glass Cannon: Haruna initially, if you don't level up her defense. Shiki Ryougi as well, at least until you activate her True Mystic Eyes ability during battle.
 * Who cares about her defense? Increase her avoidability to create a untouchable cannon!
 * All Real-type characters are either this or a Fragile Speedster.
 * Gratuitous German: Sakura. Just Sakura. Kaleido Ruby also invokes this in her intro.
 * Groundhog Day Loop: The events of Ataraxia occur during all of this; due to the various dream magics thrown around; quite a few extra players get involved the repeating four days.
 * Harder Than Hard : As if the game wasn't hard enough with the Battle Masteries and all, in a New Game+, you get to set the difficulty of the game from 0 to 10 with 10 being the highest.
 * Heroic Willpower: Sakura's powerup comes when she accepts her Darkness powers and can control them without hurting people.
 * Hundred-Percent Completion: Oh, you want to reach stage 53 and unlock Saber Lily and Magical Amber? Have fun getting every single Battle Mastery.
 * I Choose to Stay:
 * "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Shirou to Sakura while Angra Mainyu is attempting to corrupt her. Rin amusingly shows Genre Savvy and just tells him to spit it out already and tell her he loves her.
 * Intimate Healing: In the Post-Game Bonus stages, Touko comments on how Shirou's healing into his new body is so fast is because he's been getting lots of Mana from what he and Sakura do at night.
 * Improbable Weapon User: Kohaku and Hisui use a broom and a mop respectively in their attacks.
 * * Scoffs* Warcueid hits you with the moon (at least that's how it appears). The moon, people. It can't get any more improbable than this.
 * It's Personal: Arcueid picks up a beef with Gilgamesh in Act 4 for not treating her like a Worthy Opponent.
 * Jack of All Stats: Ciel and Archer. Ciel is a Super-type unit with some evasion, Archer is a Real-type unit with high HP and Toughness.
 * Joke Character / Spoony Bard (Avenger. His main gimmick is to counter every damage he received... but isn't built for tanking at all, and even if he was, he'd still do less damage than anybody else.)
 * Knife Nut: Nanaya is almost certainly one, and Ryougi and Shiki naturally get touches of this.
 * Lady of War: Several of the characters, including many that use magic rather than weapons. Saber, Caster (to a certain extent), most of the women in the Einzbern family and even Kuu. Her background theme practically oozes power and majesty.
 * Large Ham: Arcueid; whether showing up as a Big Damn Heroes and admitting that she didn't do so earlier because she didn't have a lamppost to show off on or becoming a Magical Girl just for lulz and busting through the Fourth Wall (The Throne of Heroes?) to steal Caster's Staff after she's no longer in the plot, or messing with Gilgamesh just because she can.
 * RoSHIaKI, so much.
 * Les Yay: To remove Haruna's Power Limiter and activate their Combination Attack Natsuki has to... kiss her. She then asks if Haruna's blushing. (She is.)
 * There's also Kohaku being Saber's Master. Given the intimacy that relationship often became in Fate/stay night it's not an unreasonable consideration.
 * Phantasmoon: If you're ever lonely, Ciel, come over and we'll play.
 * Let's Get Dangerous: When Arcueid stops being a Magical Girl is when she shows off her true power.
 * Lightning Bruiser: Although Takumi and Saber, as Super characters, can't dodge as well as the likes of Shiki or Lancer, but their high HP, toughness, movement range allows them to tank at the frontlines with the sweepers unlike some of the Mighty Glaciers.
 * Mad Scientist: In this game it is Canon that Kohaku constructs Mecha-Hisui's in her secret lair under the Tohno mansion.
 * Magical Girl: Two of them. Arcueid, after watching too much anime, decides to become one. Thus the Magical Girl Phantasmoon is born. She takes Len as her sidekick. And of course, Rin, to her horror, gets stuck with her Kaleido Ruby alter ego again...
 * With the Perfect patch released by Werk, it got worse. Saber and Kohaku both receive playable Magical Girl forms - Saber Lily from Fate/Unlimited Codes and the infamous Magical Amber.
 * Magikarp Power: Shiro, weak and hard to use, he eventually gets upgraded after  and gains a big boost in stats, a new attack, Nine Lives, and the special skill "Indomitable" which makes him stronger the more he gets damaged, making him a fantastic tank.
 * Sakura also gets one of these in Act 4, going from a pathetic artillery character in Act 2, into a tank with amazing ranged attacks which carry some great status effects.
 * Mighty Glacier: Akiha has very powerful attacks and a force field that will stop most things from the beginning, but she is slow and takes a long time to advance up the field.
 * This troper gave her the ability to protect her allies making her and the standard artillery team a moving fortress.
 * Mistaken for Gay: In Takumi's path, Arcueid assumes that Takumi is interested in Shiki because "usually Shiki only fights alongside people who are attracted to him." ...can't really argue with that logic there.
 * And then Akiha reflexively almost accuses him of it; though she immediately apologizes when Takumi reminds her she invited him to help out.
 * Morality Pet: Kohaku has nothing but caring and gentleness for Saber.
 * Multiple Endings: Well, more like alternate mid-game. If you do not allow Shiki to kill Yumizuka the 3 times she shows up against you,  If you do allow him to kill her those 3 times,
 * New Game+: Like the Super Robot Wars series, completing one mode let's you get the Secret Character from the other mode. Also, upon finishing the game, one can increase difficulty 1-10; as well as add a special item that increases stats. Unused stat points also carry over; as well as certain special abilities should you beat the Bonus Dungeon.
 * Ninja Maid: Hisui and Kohaku, plus new character Natsuki.
 * Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: RoSHIaKI, a fusion of one of the most powerful vampires and a demon hybrid. He's also a freakin' ninja!
 * Normally I Would Be Dead Now: Kohaku, one of the most normal (relatively speaking) characters in the game tanks a blast from Gilgamesh's Ea in Act 4 and comes out pretty torn up but alive and in one piece.
 * Obfuscating Stupidity : Kohaku: "I don't recognize the name 'Excalibur', I'm just not good with history!" CoughyeahrightCough:
 * Odd Couple: Kohaku ends up being Saber's new Master.
 * One of the underlying themes in Fate/stay night was that Masters tended to summon Servants who lead similar lives to their own. This troper thought it was a neat Lucky Translation, or whatever its equivalent is for Massive Multiplayer Crossovers
 * The game itself explores this. Saber killed off her emotions as a woman to become "The King" while Kohaku killed off her emotions to become "The Doll." Both wish there was another way.
 * One Stat to Rule Them All: One of the ways of undermining the risks of using the glass cannons is to pump BP into Quick (which, in conjunction with your base Evade, determines how successful you'll be at avoiding enemy attacks). As a lot of these characters have high Quick values to begin with, their fragility becomes a non-issue once their dodge rate approaches 100% (usually around 160+ Quick). The Shikis also gain Perfect Evade based on Will increase.
 * Original Generation: Haruna, Takumi, and Natsuki all work for an organization called "Shin'i." They generally use Magitek in order to prevent the supernatural from preying on humans, as well as encourage cooperation and co-existence between the neutral supernaturals. Anybody or anything magical; good or bad; get termed as "Youkai." Vampires, Servants, etc. Including themselves. However, they are considered small potatoes against the big players of the Nasuverse like the Mage Association and the Church; they have only been around in the last 50 years, and only active in the Nasuverse region the last 10. They are, however, more native to Japan than either of those organizations; so have ties to the general supernatural community such as the Tohno family.
 * In the first chapter we see them taking orders from a housecat named Mike. Mike is never shown again; although Takumi comments that he is their trainer. There's also some name drops to other members named Megami (weapon maker) and Tsukiyo; but they never show up.
 * Kuu is a feared ancestor of Haruna's.
 * The Not-Secret: Kohaku very quickly knows everything about Saber through a combination of her own intelligence and the ability to see Saber's dreams; although pretends to be clueless until Saber is ready to tell her about herself.
 * Panty Shot: Arcueid specifically redesigns her Power-Up Magical Girl outfit to invoke this.
 * Magical Amber's overly long fighting animation includes a zoom in panty shot.
 * Power Creep, Power Seep: Normally, characters like Shiki and Shirou would be crushed by the insanely powerful Servants, despite their special skills. And the Servants in turn would be taken out by Arcueid without her even breaking a sweat. For purposes of Game Balance they evened things out. (Plus it's awesome to have Hisui kill Nero Chaos with a mop.)
 * Also, all of the One-Hit Kill attacks (Gae Bolg, Point of Death and others) now simply do high damage.
 * That's one of the big questions of the Nasuverse though. Remember, Shirou DOES fight Servants, in every single route, and wins generally through either ingenuity or sheer bullheadedness. The question of Tohno killing a Servant really comes down to one question: are they under Gaia? If the answer is no, he's crushed flat. If yes, he's able to kill them. Of course, none of this is a problem for Ryougi, who could probably slaughter Arcueid given proper luck and method of attack.
 * Power Limiter: Haruna has several built in; to only be released for short periods of time by Natsuki.
 * Precision F-Strike (Caren busts out with TWO f*** s in Stage 53)
 * Psychic Powers: Certain members of the Mochizuki family have strong powers of Precognition. Archer explains that they work in a similar way to his and Shirou's Projection magic, meaning they can be applied to Clairvoyance and Postcognition as well.
 * Purposefully Overpowered: Arcueid when she finally drops the Magical Girl idea and starts fighting seriously is horribly broken. She is among the most powerful beings on Earth, after all.
 * Even when fooling around as a Magical Girl, she's still easily one of the strongest player characters before upgrades because Arcueid is just that powerful.
 * The Rival: Magical Girl Arcueid and Magical Girl Rin (spoofed to hell), Arcueid and Gilgamesh, Takumi and Berserker.
 * Road Cone: One can either choose the "Super" (Takumi) or "Real" (Haruna) route; most of the game is the same but Super deals more with the Tsukihime side while Real is more Fate/Stay Night. Bonus characters from each can be carried over into New Game+.
 * And regarding Road Cone franchises: Not much of a problem on the Tsukihime side, since Melty Blood has established a sort of canon for them to follow. But on the Fate Stay Night side, they decided to follow the Heaven's Feel route. This also makes Saber being with Kohaku less awkward.
 * Although in the BMW-verse, both SHIKI and Roa are canon. And both are revived at the same time. Don't...try to think about it too hard; the game mostly hides the implications behind Rule of Funny.
 * Rule of Cool: Word of God states the odds of multiple people possessing the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception at once are something on the order of trillions to one, and other Nasuverse works have established that Kara no Kyoukai and Tsukihime exist in different continuities. But come on, them getting a Combination Attack is too awesome not to have.
 * Rousing Speech: Haruna gives one just before the final battle. See the Crowning Moment page for more details.
 * Stage 34... Just... Stage 34. The first part isn't so bad, but the second part will make you scream of frustration: There's an horde of Angra Mainyu's, you have 5 turns to escape to the left (which is very short considering how far it is), all while the Mainyu's are launching their MAP skills (Ergo, no dodging/guarding/counterattacking action, and since they are grouped together, you also have to watch the Mainyu's MAP each other, which is very long, slow, and annoying). And then there's the battle mastery: Defeat True Assassin, AND THEN escape. Have fun !
 * Secret Character: Satsuki and Mech-Hisui are unlockables, Satsuki's usable on one stage even if you don't unlock her though.
 * Shout-Out: Tons. Every Mook is a shout out to some anime, game, or show. Plus several characters attacks are Shout Outs to Super Robot Wars and other Mecha shows, here's just some of them.
 * Takumi is a walking shout out to Sanger Zonvolt, complete with A SWORD THAT SMITES EVIL! He also visually resembles Shiro Amada.
 * Berserker viewing Takumi as a Worthy Opponent wouldn't be remarkable in and of itself...except that one of his attack animations copies the style of Wodan Ymir's Colossal Blade.
 * Haruna's second attack (before it was updated in the Perfect Edition) is a near imitation of Ibis Douglas's RaMV attack.
 * Phantasmoon's attacks are a homerun shot and the Inazuma Moon Kick;
 * Then Phantasmoon Eclipse uses the Spirit Bomb (unless it's a Stoner Sunshine);
 * And when Arcueid eventually drops the magical girl shtick, her new basic attack becomes Cat Hand Smash, which is all but identical to Vikungfu's God Hand Smash.
 * Two more references to Vikungfu in the double Shiki combo mimicking Vikungfu and Jet's combo, and Saber Lily mimicking Vikungfu's strongest attack of SRW fame with her Excalibur/Caliburn dual-sword attack. If that wasn't enough, remember all those scenes with Phantasmoon appearing out of the blue to give a heroic speech and kick some ass? Players of Super Robot Wars MX and Super Robot Wars Compact 2 should be able to notice just how much werk loves Machine Robo.
 * Arcueid, Ciel, and Akiha have an insanely powerful combo attack called "Final Typenic Special" a reference to the common combo attack in Super Robot Wars called "Final Dynamic Special" which involves Mazinger and Getter robots.
 * Speaking of Mazinger Z, Mech-Hisui comes complete with a lawyer-friendly Jet Scrander.
 * Gilgamesh pulls out the Goldion GUNhammer for one attack.
 * Even funnier since "King of Heroes" and "King of Braves" are both valid translations of Yuusha-Oh.
 * Several of the enemy monsters are thinly veiled Shout Outs to other series. For instance, three enemies are quite clearly the Paper Sisters from Read or Die. There's also enemies based on the Getter Robo types.
 * If you DO get Sacchin, she comes with Bakunetsu God Finger from G Gundam. Likewise, Shiro and Sakura later gets a pastiche of Sekiha Love Love Tenkyoken.
 * There are shades of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha in Kaleido Ruby; her Prism Hammer attack bears an uncanny resemblance to the many incarnations of Vita's Goldion Hammer Graf Eisen, and the animation for Schweinstein even features an Intelligent Device-esque assembly sequence.
 * Ciel's best attack is a variation on Kyosuke Nanbu's Trump Card.
 * The special item gained from beating the game once, the "Abnormal Agonist" seems to be a reference to the main character of Nasu's new novel series, DDD aka Decoration Disorder Disconnection.
 * Magical Amber's attack cut-in does not really strike anything fancy aside from a Panty Shot, until when Akiha, Shiki, and Hisui have a portrait that looks similar to the All-Out attack of Persona 4
 * The attack itself is also a shout out to Eureka Seven
 * This troper is kind of disappointed that no one mentioned RoSHIaKI's High Mega Cannon attack of Gundam ZZ fame yet; not to mention the emblem on his forehead...
 * No one seems to care about old shows... Hisui and Kohaku's combination attack...
 * Speaking of old shows, Nrvsnqr gets the Jeeg Breaker.
 * Aoko's attack has her yelling "RIDER KIIIIIIICK!"
 * Phantasmoon's "in the name of the moon." Also, the magical girl movie that Shiki and Arc were watching is an obvious reference to Cutie Honey.
 * Shown Their Work: If it's not a Super Robot Wars reference, rest assured it's something from the manual. Even Kohaku's love of video games is from Kagetsu Tohya.
 * Small Girl, Big Gun: Natsuki seems to be using an Anti-Tank gun as her standard weapon. Fortunately her Yokai ability is Super Strength.
 * Super Move Portrait Attack (comes with being a game based on the SRW series).
 * Super Strength: Takumi. How strong is he?  The Magical Two-Handed Laser Blade helped.
 * Through Her Stomach: Saber loves eating, and Kohaku loves cooking. Kohaku has no problems using this to get anything she wants from Saber. (She is nice about it, though.)
 * Amusingly Shirou warns Kohaku not to go overboard with cooking because Saber never, ever forgets a dish. Kohaku smiles, nods, and then does the exact opposite.
 * Time to Unlock More True Potential: Shiki Tohno goes through this at his request to be his "Nanaya" self.
 * Unbroken Vigil: Shirou attempts this for Sakura  but she really is okay; just tired. Rin scolds him to get outside. Saber for
 * Worthy Opponent: Berserker seems to regard Takumi as one of these. Even with his Mad Enhancement killing his sanity, Ilya comments that he wanted to fight Takumi a second time at the end of Act 3.
 * Xanatos Gambit:
 * Vampire Refugee: Satsuki and Sion. Sion handles it better due to alchemic research on the subject and her old Sire not caring as much.
 * The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Stage 51 takes place
 * Thirteen Is Unlucky: In both the Super and Real paths, mission 13 features the first major boss fight in the game, against Nrvnqsr Chaos.
 * Weirdness Censor: Ilya has a castle in Misaki that nobody ever notices. It's specifically mentioned that there's magic on it to prevent Muggles from paying attention. Rin remarks that it's one of her "smaller" castles.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist:
 * World of Badass: It's the Nasuverse as a Super Robot Wars game. They couldn't dodge this trope if they tried.
 * World of Badass: It's the Nasuverse as a Super Robot Wars game. They couldn't dodge this trope if they tried.