Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius

"As Captain Kayto Shields, embark on a galactic voyage of heroism and survival. With his home world destroyed and his nation conquered, the inexperienced Captain Shields, and his newly minted vessel, the Sunrider, are left as the only hope against a galactic evil intent on subjugating all......"

- from the Steam page blurb

Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius is Visual Novel/Turn-Based Strategy game that is mix of spaceship and mecha warfare and wacky harem comedy with an underlying serious drama as the core.

It's available on Steam for free, though it's High School AU spinoff Sunrider Academy isn't. It has a sequel called Sunrider: Liberation Day currently in development, as well as a prequel tie-in novel called Sunrider: Venizcar and novelizations of the first two arcs of the series (covered in )


 * A Mech By Any Other Name: The mecha are called Ryders.
 * Bowdlerise: The Steam release was censored, but this can be quickly undone with a patch that mostly uncensors one really mild h-game scene.
 * Crapsack World: Ongessia. So much so it was EVEN WORSE than the crime and disease ridden hellhole it currently is before the Solar Alliance tried to improve things. Unfortunately, they also aren't doing much to help by continuing to mine the planet, which only increases the pollution and poverty, which also increases the crime.
 * Doomed Hometown: On the level of an entire homeworld. Cera is quickly conquered in the prolouge of the game, and Kayto has to watch his hometown get blown off the map in the process.
 * Easier Than Easy: Visual Novel mode, which makes the battles nigh impossible to lose.
 * The Empire: PACT. Ironic, given they were founded to oppose the empire that preceded them, though some of their leaders are somewhat aware of this and are trying to remedy that, or at the very least have moral reservations about what they've become.
 * The Federation: The Solar Alliance is fairly morally upright one for the most part, though it has issues with bureaucratic inertia and morally grey behind the scenes stuff.
 * Mask Power: Discussed. Kayto speculates with his crew over why Arcadius wears a mask, with theories ranging from it granting immortality, to allowing another "Arcadius" to be a Legacy Character, and so on..
 * Mood Whiplash: The harem comedy hijinks often happen right before or after the serious and quite dark parts of the game.
 * Real Robot: The Ryders are more military based despite being rather Humongous Mecha in size.
 * Shut Up Hannibal: Sola, does this to when he goes into a rant about being immortal. With her Ryder's sniper rifle.
 * Space Opera: Although it's rather dark despite some attempts at levity.
 * Space Pirates: Cosette runs one, and there are others you have to hunt down in side missions.
 * Sole Survivor: The Sunrider is the only vessel of the Cera fleet to escape the prologue unscathed. Chigara is the only survivor of the Diode Catastrophe. Icari lost all of her family to PACT troopers, and Sola is the only survivor of the long ago Ryuvian Civil War.