Trinity Universe (video game)



Trinity Universe is a Massively Multiplayer Crossover RPG created by Nippon Ichi Software, Idea Factory and Gust Corporation for the PlayStation 3. Oddly, it's a little short on the massive, with only a handful of guest characters from two series, Atelier and Disgaea. It is noteworthy for being the first time characters from either of those series have appeared in 3D polygon form. The game owes a lot to Cross Edge, with large chunks of its battle system and bestiary being lifted directly from the former game.

Trinity Universe take place in the Netheruniverse, where space debris and odd junk drifts to. The city of Empyria is located in the middle of it, protected from impacting space junk by the Demon God Gem, which requires sacrificing a member of the royal family to create. The latest sacrifice, Kanata, has broken free and is looking for another solution, when he's not getting distracted. Meanwhile, Rizelea, a Valkyrie, is investigating the cause of the drifting space junk as well as chasing after Kanata to force him to become Demon God Gem.

The gameplay is pretty standard, but the writing and characters are memorable and funny. Note that it has nothing to do with White Wolf's tabletop RPG series.

"Lucius: *sniff* ... Tch. What, am I a low-tier supporting role now?"
 * Anime Theme Song: COSMOLAGOON. Love it or hate it, it will be stuck in your head for days.
 * Arbitrary Headcount Limit
 * The Bechdel Test: The cast skews female (2 to 1 if you don't count prinnies as having a gender) and in Rizelia's path, the girls often completely forget that Lucius is there.

"Pamela: She can create stuff by combining other stuff with things."
 * Berserk Button: If you are stupid enough to steal one of Flonne's space cruisers, make sure never to lose it by the time she catches up to you or else "[SHE] WON'T EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER FORGIVE YOU!"
 * BFS: Kanata and he holds it one-handed.
 * Big Breasts, Big Deal: Tsubaki is a type 3. She mainly does this to taunt Etna.
 * Big Damn Heroes: Played with. Flonne stays behind with Lucius and the others to fight some minor enemies to intentionally set this up. It doesn't work out.
 * Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Tsubaki, to the point where Kanata's the only one that isn't aware of it. Amusingly, Kanata actually seems genuinely happy whenever she reveals herself in front of him.
 * However, there is an even bigger Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. It turns out to be
 * Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: The central ingredient in everything Rizelia makes.
 * Bonus Boss: After finishing the game and earning the True Ending, ten gates open up in Yoma King Castle, giving you the chance to challenge some of the hardest end game bosses in the entire game. The most powerful one would have to be  Even if you're level 999, you still need some work to do just to dent him. Not only do physical attacks miss on him, unless you grind your HIT to around 50k, he can still dent your HP even if you have over 100k on your life. Hint: use your magicians especially Flonne to even put a dent on his HP. And abuse Barrier.
 * Break Meter: As the Chapter 3 tutorial indicates, certain enemies have a Soul Barrier that largely reduces damage taken from attacks. However, with repeated attacks, either by certain elemental or EX skills, the barrier will fall, and the enemy is rendered Soul Broken, having reduced defenses. However, this can come with an increase in offensive power, and certain enemies can rebuild their barrier or have a second one, which has lead to an below-mentioned exploit that can reap massive amounts of Experience.
 * Breaking the Fourth Wall: A lot of lines, but the Prinnies and Etna are especially fond of it.
 * --> Prinny:  He doesn't really stand out, dood. He's gotta appeal to the audience and break the fourth wall like us, dood.
 * Brick Joke: The collectible space cruiser that Etna loses and Flonne is after her for is one of the random dungeons that can drift in. Most likely the player won't see it until long after that plot thread is forgotten, though it's also quite possible it could show up with perfect timing.
 * Buffy-Speak: Pamela on Violet:

"Could you guys handle this? I'm busy drinking this... Juice."
 * Butt Monkey: Lucius, who attempts to be a Card-Carrying Villain, but ends up being the Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain.
 * Calling Your Attacks: Lampshaded by Flonne, who urges Rizelea to do the same. Though their attack works, all but Kanata end up laughing at them.
 * Catgirl: Miyu, the "Snow Cat"
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Lord Kanata, Pamela, and, of course, Flonne.
 * Combination Attack
 * Combos: Not at all unexpected, the battle system is basically a more standard RPG version of Cross Edge.
 * Conversational Troping: Done a lot, especially by the prinnies. The concepts of Yamato Nadeshiko and Red Shirt actually come up by name.
 * Cute Ghost Girl: Pamela. She just wants to scare you and be your friend.
 * Cuteness Proximity: Pamela gets this way about the prinnies.
 * Design It Yourself Equipment: The Managraphics allow a certain degrees of this. It basically repaints a part of the weapon with the managraphic's theme. The themes are strange, like Black Cat, UFO, or even Prinny, and they cause the theme images to appear in the air around enemies as you land hits.
 * They're also how you acquire mana for synthesis items. Another thing to note is that certain managraphics also come with a elemental attack built in, so carefully consider which you use, since many enemies are outright immune to certain elements. Thankfully, you can switch from one graphic to the other in-battle.
 * Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Lucius has a very bad habit of vocalizing his evil plots. Unlike most examples, though, he never gets the hint and honestly thinks that he's keeping his thoughts to himself even though his victims can hear him loud and clear.
 * Disproportionate Retribution: Rizelia, all the time. Especially to Lucius. When he insults her cooking she threatens to pour it into all his orifices while he sleeps. Also Etna to the prinnies, but that's just par for the course.
 * Downloadable Content: Like Cross Edge, it has several item packs you can download. Nothing that isn't available in the main game, but if you pay for supplies early on you'll be overpowered until most of the way through the game.
 * Everything's Better with Penguins: Prinnies, dood!
 * Evil Is Hammy:
 * Excuse Plot
 * Expy: Lucius is a Hot-Blooded Butt Monkey who loudly proclaims that he's the Dark Hero and is trying to provide for his siblings back home after an incident tarnished his reputation. Sound familiar?
 * Suzaku looks a lot like Yuri Lowell and they even share the same English voice actor.
 * Frothy Mugs of Water: Lampshaded by Etna.
 * Frothy Mugs of Water: Lampshaded by Etna.

"N-no, this isn't me... I'm not this... We're not me... I'm not you..."
 * Gag Dub: The localization has many more jokes and references thrown into the dialog.
 * Genki Girl: Flonne, of course. Mizuki and Rizelia are also good examples.
 * Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: When confronting Recit a second time as Kanata, Kanata decides to fight Recit to wake him up. The others feel it's just a waste of time.
 * Heroic BSOD: Lucius, after an Next Episode skit playing him as a Hero of Light.

"Time for a kamikaze rush! We may be expendable, but in a pinch we can be worth our weight in gold, dood!"
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: Kanata is Minoru Shiraishi, Rizelea is Rin Tohsaka, Tsubaki is Sakura, Lucius is Zidane, Miyu is Hinata, Suzaku is Yuri Lowell, and Pamela is Lilymon this time around.
 * In Japanese, Rizelea is Stocking, Tsubaki is Azusa, Mizuki is Rico, Suzaku is Train, Recit is Touma
 * Highly-Visible Ninja: Mizuki. She cares more about the beauty of her assassinations rather than actually getting the job done. She also freely uses various forms of the word "assassinate" in front of her targets. Her bright outfit doesn't help her case either.
 * Hot-Blooded: Kanata, Lucius, Recit, and even the prinnies once in a red moon.

"Antenna is wrong! Tension is correct!"
 * Idiot Hair: Lucius has "invented" an antenna that acts as a tension gauge.

"We'll back you up from, uh, really far back, dood!"
 * Improbable Weapon User: Fans, umbrellas, brooms, and frying pans to name a few. Prinnies get special mention in that they start out dual wielding knives, but weapon upgrades change this to fish and popsicles.
 * Item Crafting: Again, mostly lifted from Cross Edge. About 90% of the game's items are exclusively ingredients for this.
 * Kitsune: Tsubaki. Many of her attacks even involve foxfire.
 * Lethal Chef: Rizelea. Her cooking is so spicy it burns your skin before you even taste it. She seems to enjoy it though.
 * Level Grinding: You will find yourself doing a lot of this before traveling between areas.
 * Light Is Not Good:
 * Limit Break
 * Lovable Coward: The prinnies.

"Prinny: Maybe we'll get a documentary about our disappearance someday: 'Prinny: Can I Really Be Lost in Space?,' dood."
 * Mood Whiplash: The game has a habit of going from funny to serious to funny again within seconds.
 * Multiple Endings: Each path has a bad, normal, and best endings as well as a final true path.
 * Mythology Gag: Upon hearing that Lucius and Violet are not into anime, Flonne tries to introduce them into one. The series in question? Disgaea.
 * When Prinny asks if it's okay to do the "Next Episode" bit, Etna mockingly says, "Can I Really Be the Hero?". There's also another one that combines this with Shout-Out.

"Miyu: A fox, a cat, a penguin, and a dog? I want some animal crackers!"
 * "Pffft, a ghost Prinny would be fun. Possessing people, Mind Control..."
 * New Game+
 * Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Mizuki, the Super Assassin Idol.
 * No Fourth Wall: Etna, Flonne, and the Prinnies obviously, but the rest of the cast will usually do this as well.
 * Offscreen Moment of Awesome:, everyone takes places and launches a series of attacks meant to destroy it for good. The problem is that it's done entirely using the game's event cut scenes, leaving the entire thing to the player's imagination.
 * Optional Party Member: The game gives you four. The Managraphic Artist Miyu, Assassin Idol Mizuki, Treasure Hunter Recit, and
 * Original Generation: Most of the main characters, with the imports acting as supporting cast. They don't hog to much spotlight though, the developers know who people bought the game to see.
 * The Other Darrin: Dorothy Elias-Fahn replaces Brianne Siddall as Pamela.
 * Peninsula of Power Leveling: Sure those Lurkers are going to give you trouble for all their worth but if you can pull off two Soul Breaks from them, well...
 * If anything, you could even go all the way to 19 million experience points.
 * Petting Zoo People: Half the Original Generation.

""As long as I, the Universal Witch of Justice, Galaxy Superstar Gothic Lolita Flonne, live, it won't happen!" Galaxy Angel Sniper, Turbo Flonne EX-S!"
 * Playing Against Type: Oh, so you think Tsubaki is another Ayana Taketatsu pigeonholed role just because she has cute ears? Wait till she starts swearing...
 * Playing to The Fetishes: Some of the promotional artwork was re-done due to lack of sexiness.
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Aside from Etna and Flonne, much of the Original Generation is this.
 * Red Shirt: Invoked by Etna, who actually refers to the prinnies as this.
 * Royals Who Actually Do Something: Kanata
 * Running Gag: After one of the prinnies calls Next Episode Previews Etna's only defining character trait, it's brought up every time she does one. The prinnies pay dearly for this.
 * Throwing the prinnies for no reason is another one. It's even Pamela's EX Attack.
 * Etna and Flonne's self appointed titles get more and more ridiculous as the game goes on.

"Prinny: Normally, we have to use logic, deduce, and present evidence to incriminate you. Take that, dood! Pamela: Objection! I think he's honest. That's admirable."
 * Shaped Like Itself: This gem from Flonne: "It might be judgemental, but villains are always up to villainous things!"
 * Shout-Out: After Recit immediately confesses that he's the one who destroyed all the cash registers, the Prinnies are upset over the lack of suspense in this investigation. They and Pamela follow it up with this:

"Lucius: More carrots? I am neither a horse nor a rabbit, woman. I think you've got a serious fetish."
 * Simultaneous Arcs: The Demon Dog King (dark) path and the Valkyrie (light) path take place at the same time from different points of view.
 * Take note that 'Point of view' is the key phrase here. Whichever side you're playing through generally comes away with the win, but you have to play through both sides in order to really piece everything together.
 * Spell My Name with an "S": Prior to the U.S. release, there were numerous different romanizations for Rizelea . Lucius had this problem as well with his name being pronounced "Loo-Ki-Us". And, of course, there's Violet/Viorate.
 * Take That: Several. Most Notable is the Chapter 13 Opening Dialog where Etna comments "It's better than some random mastermind showing up and saying we're all characters in a videogame...isn't that a horrible twist?" A not so subtle nod to.
 * Team Mom: Violet.
 * Title Drop: Some of the victory quotes will end with the entire party shouting Trinity Universe.
 * Too Many Belts: Recit. One of his belts is used as a headband.
 * Trademark Favorite Food: Violet loves carrots. So much so that her starter weapon is a carrot staff and she summons giant exploding carrots as a Limit Break. It's also all she cooks...


 * Tsundere: Rizelea
 * Unusual Ears: Kanata, Tsubaki, and Miyu.
 * Verbal Tic: Prinnies, dood!
 * Violence Is the Only Option: Rizelea's answer to almost everything.
 * Violet Debuted In Trinity Universe: Aaaagh. That's twice now for the classic Atelier games. This game is the first time American gamers get to play with Violet Platane. The game she starred in was released in Japan in 2003.
 * White-Haired Pretty Boy: Kanata
 * White-Haired Pretty Girl: Pamela and Miyu
 * White Prince: Kanata
 * Yamato Nadeshiko: Tsubaki tries very hard to be one, even wearing an incredibly impractical Chihaya everywhere she goes but when no one's paying attention or when she's especially agitated...
 * Zettai Ryouiki: Rizelia, now with Grade S (and so does Etna)! We also have Miu too!