Last Scenario



""This -- is a hero's work?""

Hilbert is an idealistic village boy, the self-declared (and much ridiculed) protector of his hometown, and an aspiring hero. One day, he is approached by a mysterious robed woman named Zawu, who tells him that he is a descendant of the hero Alexander and destined to become a hero himself. So begins a legendary quest to defeat an ancient, evil power and bring peace to the world.

Well, not really.

The basic premise of Last Scenario is to start out with the most cliched CRPG plot imaginable, and then twist it into something interesting. Before long, the cliches start to fall apart at an alarming rate, and what emerges is a long, compelling plot involving (among other things) international politics, betrayal, and the occasional bit of geology.

A freeware RPG by SCF, Last Scenario is a great example of how RPG Maker games can be done right. It can be downloaded at SCF's website. While you're at it, check out Exit Fate by the same guy.

This game provides examples of: "I proved my superiority. I have already won. I Regret Nothing."
 * 24-Hour Armor: Matilda.
 * Abandoned Laboratory: The Third Seal when you re-enter it.
 * The Ace: Melchior.
 * Action Bomb: Cubes, and their stronger variant Vorpal Cubes.
 * Action Initiative
 * Air Vent Passageway: How left the biorite facility..
 * All Myths Are True:
 * Angst Coma:
 * Anticlimax Boss: isn't easy, but if you have protection against instant death, he's not particularly hard, either. Since he comes right after the hardest boss in the game, this makes him look like a bit of a wuss in comparison.
 * Antidote Effect: Mostly inverted due to the sparseness and importance of spellcard slots and low cost of status cure items, which make it likely for you to have 99 of each one third into the game.
 * Anti-Villain: Felgorn, Flynn, and Earp in particular, though most of the villains are at least somewhat sympathetic.
 * Applied Phlebotinum: Any of a number of things that run on biorite.
 * Armor-Piercing Attack: The spells Laser, Rage and Gamma.
 * Art Evolution: SCF's drawing blog occasionally contains Last Scenario character art. It advanced quite a bit from the Character Portraits found in the game.
 * : The Big Bad's goal.
 * The Atoner:.
 * Authority Equals Asskicking: Castor and Ortas, in particular. Subverted with Drakovic, who, smart, talented leader though he is, is a bit of a pushover in a fight.
 * Awesome but Impractical: The Gamma spellcard deals huge damage, but is rather unreliable and has a huge MP cost and an unpleasant stat malus.
 * Also, the Fury spellcard, which heals your entire party, and pretty well, too. The problem? It makes them berserk. The crisis spell heals even more but causes confusion. Again, though, it can become Awesome Yet Practical if you equip the right status protection...
 * The Ruin equipment that you can steal from smilie type enemies are all phenomenally powerful, but are all cursed in some way or another. (the Ruin Mask is poisoned, for example.)
 * The Unholy Mitre greatly boosts your stats but makes you take damage from healing.
 * Awesome Yet Practical: The Enlight spell, which gives one character a buff that is similar to Regen, only it regenerates MP. On a similar note, the Chi spell, which regenerates a percentage of the user's MP for free. Can't be used outside of battle, though. On top of that, there's the X-Shield spell, which doubles both magical and physical defense for one character. The crisis cast makes the whole party take half damage from everything.
 * Also Steal once you get the Thief Glove accessory, which makes the attempt almost 100% successful with some monsters - you really cannot refuse free Gold Dusts and Serpent Fangs.
 * Back Tracking: Returning to the ruins nets you a Hex tile.
 * Badass Cape: Zawu. Take that, Golbez. Over-the-top perma-Dramatic Wind is unnecessary.
 * Badass Mustache: Drakovic.
 * Bag of Sharing
 * Bait and Switch Boss: Subverted when
 * Beef Gate: While you can technically enter the four Towers early on, don't even think about going in there until much later, as the enemies are usually at least ten levels higher than you. A good rule of thumb is to leave each tower alone until you can access the next one.
 * Big Brother Instinct: Although in this case, it's the younger brother who was determined to protect the older one.
 * Ethan is extremely close to and protective of Lorenza, as well, to the point where.
 * Big Damn Heroes: Antagonist example:,  arrives in a flash of light and strikes her down.
 * On the good guy side, at one point Ethan shows up out of nowhere to stop.
 * Bishonen Line: The penultimate form of the final boss is a deformed slug-like block thing, and the ultimate one, while still a One-Winged Angel, is much more humanoid again.
 * Blatant Lies: " was killed by the enemy." As Keltena's Let's Play put it, "And by 'the enemy,' I mean me, personally."
 * Block Puzzle: On Grey Peak, complete with Frictionless Ice. The four Towers are fond of these as well, only with pillars.
 * Blond Guys Are Evil: Augustus and Castor. On the other hand, Hilbert, Thorve, and Wilhelm are all blond. And something like this is at play in the fact that
 * Blood From the Mouth: The sign that are screwed.
 * Bonus Boss: Quite a few, usually in a Bonus Dungeon. The most difficult one,, is for a Cosmetic Award.
 * Bonus Dungeon: Oh so many. There's almost one for every Sidequest.
 * Bonus Level of Heaven: The Gate to Elysium is themed like this.
 * Boss Banter: 's "DIE! DIE! DIE!" and "I'll stop you!"
 * Boss in Mook Clothing: Some of the smileys are significantly stronger than the other enemies you encounter in the area they're in. Also, the Black Dragon from the Black Mausoleum, and one enemy type for each tower.
 * Brick Joke: One of the books lying around at the Biorite Facility, and it mentions that, "Physical change in subject is largely superficial." A dungeon or two later, you learn what they meant:.
 * Broken Ace: Augustus, Castor, and, to a degree, Felgorn.
 * Broken Bridge: The "energy crystals" are used to prevent you from going to the second and third (and the Tower of Punishment) before going to the first. They're not very hard to get rid of once you do, though.
 * Buried Alive:
 * Cain and Abel:
 * Helga and Wilhelm.
 * Cap: Interestingly, while levels cap at 99, HP caps at 9999 and MP caps at 999, there does not seem to be a damage cap, though there are only few attacks in the game that can ever get into five-digit damage.
 * Cardboard Obstacle: Crystallized energy, which requires the Bergheim Ray to be destroyed.
 * Challenge Seeker: Despite having ulterior goals, treats his striving for power like a game.
 * Helga and Wilhelm.
 * Cap: Interestingly, while levels cap at 99, HP caps at 9999 and MP caps at 999, there does not seem to be a damage cap, though there are only few attacks in the game that can ever get into five-digit damage.
 * Cardboard Obstacle: Crystallized energy, which requires the Bergheim Ray to be destroyed.
 * Challenge Seeker: Despite having ulterior goals, treats his striving for power like a game.

"Hans: Don't believe everything they tell you. There's a vast conspiracy manipulating all of this. That's right. Aliens from another planet are the real power behind this world."
 * Character Portrait: Many characters have alternate portraits as well.
 * Chekhov's Gunman:
 * Chess Motifs: Most enemies and all bosses in the Black Mausoleum are themed after chess pieces.
 * Chest Monster:
 * The Chosen One: Hilbert.
 * Chronic Hero Syndrome: This gets Hilbert in a lot of trouble several times near the beginning of the game, and while it never really goes away, he eventually learns to temper it with a little bit of common sense..
 * Circling Birdies: The symbol of the Chaos effect.
 * Cliché Storm: Then proceeds to subvert everything.
 * Climax Boss: Almost everything that isn't a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere. and  in particular, however.
 * Co-Dragons: The Omega Team (Helio in particular) and Tiamat to Castor.
 * Cognizant Limbs: The Wall Sentinel's faces, Thanatos' arms and the Fire Dragon's wings.
 * Colonel Badass: Drakovic, after a couple well-deserved promotions.
 * Conspiracy Theorist: A minor NPC, Played for Laughs.

"I am happy beyond belief to finally have access to a Hex trading post. Although I'm not sure why they think we'd be interested in throwing knives."
 * Contrived Coincidence:
 * Cool Old Guy: Randolph makes a decent case for this.
 * Cool Ship: The Brunhild,
 * Cosmetic Award: The Sign of Eternity, a useless item awarded for defeating the hardest boss in the game.
 * Creepy Child: The Hex-playing and grey-haired little girl in Herzog.
 * Cry for the Devil: You will feel sorry for.
 * Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: On more than one occasion, Matilda threatens to rip someone's head off. Of course, given that this is Matilda, it's quite likely she means it.
 * Cutscene Power to the Max: Lorenza instantly vaporizes a soldier trying to grab her arm with a single lightning spell in the scene she's introduced in, but in the following fight, you need quite a few of them to defeat one.
 * Damage Increasing Debuff: The crisis cast of Aquabeam lowers the victim's magic defense. It's the only debuff the player characters can inflict, actually.
 * Damage Sponge Boss: A lot of the Giant Space Fleas From Nowhere.
 * Dark and Troubled Past: Ethan, Thorve and Hilbert.
 * Dark Messiah:
 * Dead Little Sister: No wonder he went a little nuts.
 * Death by Irony:
 * Death of a Thousand Cuts:
 * Defeat Means Friendship: People will play Hex with you in areas you just conquered; most notably, are really quite friendly after their country is invaded.
 * Also, who joins you immediately after you fight her.
 * Defend Command
 * Degraded Boss: The Prototypes (presumably subjects of the Artificial Key project).
 * Desperation Attack: Limit Break.
 * Dirty Coward:
 * Disc One Final Dungeon:
 * Disc One Nuke: A relatively minor one: if you play a ton of Hex, it's possible to get 10 Brigand tiles and trade them in for a Steal spellcard before you even leave for Farin Island. As a reward for being way too dedicated, you can steal a unique weapon for Matilda from the boss that's stronger than anything you can get until about fifteen levels later.
 * Disease Bleach: Inverted.
 * Doomed Hometown: Lorenza is forced to leave the village she lives in by its (egoistic but Genre Savvy) mayor to avoid this.
 * Door to Before: The Black Mausoleum, Temple of Gaia, and, though the latter's doesn't bring you back to the entrance.
 * Down the Drain: The Underground Waterway.
 * Dronejam: An accidental example is found in the Condor Library, and a few places contain entrances blocked off by guards.
 * Dual Boss: . Also Prototypes 4 and 5 and the necromancer with the Swamp Beast. The entire is a Triple Boss.
 * Dual-Wielding: Flynn.
 * Duel Boss: At one point, you have four of these in a row, with different characters. The only one that's really a boss is, though; the rest are Elite Mooks.
 * Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Shown by Hilbert during his Heroic BSOD and by Lorenza at another point on their sprites.
 * Dungeon Town: There's also a segment on Pargon Island, where you, and.
 * Dying Moment of Awesome: See Heroic Sacrifice.
 * Early-Bird Cameo: About one hour into the game, you can see and talk to Drakovic, but he won't have much relevance until halfway through the game.
 * Easy Levels, Hard Bosses: This says a lot considering most encounters require your full attention and careful maintenance of your resources.
 * An Economy Is You
 * Emergency Energy Tank: Orbs. And you will need them.
 * Encounter Bait: The Siren and Lure accessories.
 * Encounter Repellant: The Camo Cape and Invisibility Ring accessories.
 * Enemy Summoner: Guard Pillars, Watch Discs and Defensive Drones. Guard Pillars call others of their type, while Watch Discs and Defensive Drones alert guards or watch dogs.
 * Enigmatic Minion: Castor and the Omega Team, at first.
 * Equipment Spoiler: You will sometimes find weapons of a type that isn't used by any of your characters yet at a hex trading post. Lampshaded in Keltena's Let's Play:

"That's right! You're a liar, !"
 * Everything Trying to Kill You:
 * There are many strange random enemies, including mushrooms, dolls, wood walls, moles, two very different types of idols, emoticons, and in a Bonus Dungeon
 * The bosses are even stranger: you will i. e. come to fight a wall with an engraved face, not to mention the Zeitgeist, which is basically a big clock. Don't forget the Tomes and Keys (which are Exactly What It Says on the Tin) either.
 * Everything's Better with Princesses:
 * Evil Prime Minister:
 * Evil Redhead: Tiamat.
 * Experience Booster: The Mental Booster.
 * Explosive Overclocking:
 * Exposition Break: A considerable amount, considering this is a very story-heavy game. There is even one that lasts around 45 minutes... which is followed by a save point, and then another cutscene.
 * Eyes Always Shut: Helio. When they open, it's... a bad sign.
 * Face Palm: Matilda does this in a couple of cutscenes.
 * Fantastic Racism:
 * Fate Worse Than Death: Tiamat considers this and hates  for doing so instead of killing her. Also.
 * Faux Symbolism: There are a lot of random mythological names.
 * Fiery Redhead: Matilda and Tiamat.
 * Fight Woosh
 * Final Boss Preview: Sort of a boss preview (leave out the "final"), when is attacked by Hilbert the first time.
 * Fire, Ice, Lightning: The main - and first - three elements of attack spells.
 * Fixed Damage Attack: A mushroom Palette Swap in the Entalar Caves has an attack called "One-Hundred Spores".
 * Flunky Boss: The final boss and the hardest optional boss, though the latter revives its helpers only once.
 * Flying Seafood Special: Flying Fish. In a forest.
 * Foe Yay: Castor is rather... interested in Hilbert.
 * Four-Philosophy Ensemble: Hilbert is the Optimist, Matilda is the Cynic, Thorve is the Realist, Lorenza is the Conflicted, and the other three are all, each for a different reason, Apathetic.
 * Fragile Speedster: has the highest speed stat of any player character, but their defense is barely better than Thorve's. Also something of a Glass Cannon, though, as their offense is pretty high.
 * Freudian Excuse: When he, this causes him to really snap.
 * Freudian Trio: The first three party members (Hilbert, Thorve, Matilda) could qualify as this, as well as the Omega Team.
 * Game Breaking Bug: If you just try to play the game on Vista or Windows 7, no text is displayed (some issue with the font). There are two workarounds though, one of which seems to be always successful.
 * After  on the Rosehart bridge, you're told to go back to Southbridge, but you can actually keep going and end up in Northbridge after   The glitch also prevents the next dungeon from showing up on the map, rendering the game unwinnable.
 * Gameplay and Story Segregation:
 * The boss battle against . By the time you fight him, he has a gigantic stab wound, Blood From the Mouth, is very mentally unstable, and is quite clearly on the verge of death. And yet he has over 10,000 hit points and can toss out devastating attacks every few rounds. Hate to think what he'd have been like at full power... Though you can probably thank Critical Existence Failure for that. What's most odd about this is if you scan during your first fight with him, his max HP is 3000, but his HP is only 1000 at the start of the battle, since before the fight . It was odd that SCF didn't do the same thing with.
 * Also, a small thing near the beginning: it is mentioned that dying people turning into spectres is an extremely rare case requires the person to be died under extreme regret. But a bit later, spectres are randomly-encountered enemies in.
 * Considering that a bit of dialogue later implies that, this may actually make perfect sense.
 * Genius Loci:
 * Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: The Marid King, the Viviones, the Earth Golem, Pestilence... the list goes on. There are many, many plot-unrelated boss monsters in this game.
 * The Marid King is actually (just barely) a subversion, as you find out soon afterwards that it's the reason nobody was there to meet you at the start of the dungeon like there was supposed to (nobody wanted to take the risk and try to fight their way past it to get to you.)
 * is the mega mac daddy of Giant Space Fleas From Nowhere, just suddenly appearing out of nowhere on the World Map (with no explanation as to why you're apparently fighting ) if you beat the game with all 100 hex tiles.
 * Go Mad From the Isolation:, though she wasn't entirely sane when she was locked.
 * God Save Us From the Queen: Empress Helga singlehandedly threw her country into complete chaos.
 * Going Down with the Ship: Lampshaded and defied. When Matilda sardonically asks Moritz about this, he replies that after losing the first ship, you get used to it.
 * Good Republic, Evil Empire: It starts out looking this way, but it's quickly subverted.
 * Gory Discretion Shot: It's partially this (or at least a "massacre discretion shot", since Last Scenario's sprite style isn't prone to being gory anyway) and partially a "spoiler discretion shot" when.
 * Gratuitous German: The imperial capital is called Herzog (duke), and a mining town is called Kohlen ("coals"; the word "Kohle" doesn't actually have a plural, though), among many others.
 * Gratuitous Greek
 * Green Rocks: Biorite.
 * Guide Dang It: There's a larger version of the world map, with locations marked. It's possible to play the game through multiple times and not realize this. (Press the A key on the overworld, if you're wondering.)
 * Hat of Power: Helio wears a speed-increasing hair ribbon, and Flynn has a beret protecting against some detrimental effects. Also, there are items like the Arch-Angel's Halo, which immunizes against all negative status effects and gives huge defence boosts, the Spring Hat, massively increasing HP, and the Crystalline Crown (automatically P-Shielding).
 * He Who Fights Monsters:.
 * Healing Shiv: Elemental weapons or strikes can be used to "attack" an ally absorbing this element.
 * Heel Face Turn: Arguably,.
 * Heroes Prefer Swords: Rather spectacularly averted. Hilbert uses a bow, and the rest of your party uses, in order, spears, magic crystals, staves, axes, and throwing knives. It's not until the very last Player Character joins you that the party gets a sword-user.
 * Heroic BSOD: Hilbert briefly goes through this after learning that . And then there's, who actually passed out on the floor when
 * Heroic Lineage: The plot starts when Hilbert is told he is a descendant of Alexander. But in an awesome usage of Playing with a Trope,
 * Heroic Sacrifice: . 's death can also be counted as one of these, although he does it for the other side.
 * Heroic Wannabe: Hilbert, especially in the beginning when he has the manic wish to be the "protector of his village".
 * Hidden Elf Village: Subverted hard. At first it seems that the Havali are living in one of these somewhere, and Lorenza was taken out for unknown reasons. But eventually we learn that
 * Hopeless Boss Fight: The first encounter with . Arguably the solo fight with, although that one can be beaten on a New Game+ (not that the game notices).
 * Melchior is level 99, either immune to or absorbs every element, does thousands of HP worth of damage with his normal attacks, and his Regen spell restores HP in the tens of thousands per round. It is possible to beat him (though very, very, very unlikely), but you're supposed to
 * How Dare You Die on Me!: Matilda freaks out when dies.
 * HP to One: has an attack that does this when you fight her, and Thanatos has one that hits your entire party. So do the Black King and the third Elysium boss. The King's one even ignores all shielding spells.
 * The Rage crisis cast Erosion and the Chi crisis cast Transfer do this to the user, as a prize for great damage or mana restoration.
 * I Lied:
 * "I- I trusted you!" "Well, that was a stupid move. But then, you never were very bright, were you?"
 * I Regret Nothing:
 * Ideal Hero: As you can see from the page quote, this is one of the most prominent tropes the game deconstructs. In a more general example, Hilbert wants to be one, and has arguably succeeded by the end of the game.
 * Idiot Hero: Hilbert borders on this, especially at the beginning.
 * In a World: The introductory text is very much like this.
 * In the Back: How the real Big Bad finally reveals himself.
 * Incoming Ham: Not that he actually is a Large Ham, mind you, but the principle is the same:
 * Incoming Ham: Not that he actually is a Large Ham, mind you, but the principle is the same:

": If thinks they can take control of our country, I'll make their lives as miserable as possible."
 * Infinity+1 Sword: Interestingly, there's everything but an Infinity Plus One Weapon. The thing coming closest to them are the "ultimate" weapons of each kind, which just are unique and deal most damage.
 * Infinity Plus One Accessory: The Hero's Soul, which increases all stats by 50 and grants immunity to all elements. Can only be equipped on Hilbert, though. Arguably, the Gold Sceptre for everyone else, which just grants elemental immunity.
 * Infinity Minus One Accessory: Warding Charms, which make the wearer immune to all status ailments. You will need them if you want to take on the Bonus Bosses.
 * Infinity Plus One Helm: The Arch-Angel's Halo, only obtained by defeating the second-hardest optional boss. Grants huge physical and magical defense boosts, and grants immunity to all status ailments.
 * Infinity Minus One Helm: The Crystalline Crown, auto-P-Shielding, and the Spring Hat, increasing the wearer's max HP.
 * Infinity Plus One Armour: The Lord-Sorcerer's Gown, which grants a significant intellect boost and halves MP cost.
 * Infinity Minus One Armour: The Sacral Gown, which grants auto-regeneration of HP, and Mashimizu's Robe, which gives an extreme speed boost.
 * Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence
 * Interface Spoiler: Two companions who never are in your playable party? Conspicuous.
 * Involuntary Group Split: In, an earthquake hits that splits the party into 4 disparate groups, and you wind up going through most of the arc without.
 * It's All Upstairs From Here: The four Towers, although they're Bonus Dungeons.
 * Karmic Death:
 * Kick the Son of a Bitch: Helio. Quoth Earp: "That was cruel even for you."
 * The Kingdom: Definitely not the case here.
 * Knight Templar:
 * Knight Templar Big Brother: Played With..
 * La Résistance: The.

""You are... not a very inconspicuous group.""
 * Lady of War: Zawu, and maybe Matilda.
 * The Lancer: Usually Matilda, though Thorve is this at times as well.
 * Laser-Guided Amnesia: Biorite can do this to humans, though specifically Ethan and
 * Last-Disc Magic: Gamma and, to a lesser extent, Vortex.
 * Law of Cartographical Elegance
 * Lazy Backup
 * Leaked Experience: Characters not currently in the active party still gain experience from boss fights.
 * Leitmotif: Thorve, Lorenza, Zawu, Ortas, and.
 * And Bergheim gets one that doesn't fit his personality in the slightest.
 * Lethal Joke Item: The Trick spellcard, pretending to be detrimental with its uses: The normal cast inflicts confusion on the user, and the Crisis cast kills them. Why use it then? Because wearing it boosts almost all of your stats by a huge amount.
 * Let's Split Up, Gang!: Happens at many points, but especially prominent in the Entalar storyline, which starts out by splitting your seven people into four groups and slowly reunites them.
 * Level Grinding: Averted, thankfully. Though the bosses are usually really hard, it's more a matter of "you didn't equip the right equipment/spellcards, use a different setup and try again" than "go back and grind levels for an hour".
 * Life Drain: A low-level spellcard. The crisis cast is a Mana Drain.
 * The Lifestream:
 * Lightning Bruiser: Hilbert, though he's possibly more of a Jack of All Stats that sacrifices intellect for speed.
 * Limit Break: Interestingly, the spells, not the characters, have these. Whenever a character's "Crisis" bar fills up from being whacked around enough, they can use a spell's special "Crisis" ability, though it usually costs a lot of MP.
 * As a Final Fantasy Shout-Out, one of these spells (Crisis cast of Bolster, a Desperation Attack) is called Limit Break.
 * Look Behind You!: During the first arc, where Thorve and Lorenza are trying to infiltrate the . The guards say "No one is allowed to pass!", and Thorve says "Can't pass? Then who's that person over there?"
 * Looks Like Cesare: Ethan.
 * Lost Forever: Several items that you can only get by stealing from bosses, as well as anything in, since you blow it up on your way out.
 * Luck Stat: Type 6.
 * The Man Behind the Man: This happens a quite a few times....
 * Mana Burn: Mindblow.
 * Mana Drain: The crisis casts of Life Drain and Mindblow, and the signature ability of the Brain Leech enemy line.
 * Marathon Boss: Almost all of the bosses have incredibly high health that can take quite a while to whittle down. The fact that they're constantly tossing attacks that can put one or more characters in critical health doesn't help things. Two bosses take the cake, though: the most difficult Bonus Boss in the main game, who has a whopping 200,000 hit points, and the New Game+ boss, which has one million.
 * Meaningful Name: Lots -- quite a few pages ago, there is a gigantic comment about name etymology here. Of note is "Entalar", which means, and "Castor", which comes from a Greek word that means "shine" or "excel".
 * Metal Slime: The "smiley" enemies. They give hefty amounts of experience, and can drop very powerful, albeit cursed, equipment.
 * Mighty Glacier: Matilda.
 * Mini Game: Hex, a collectible board game that has taken the game world by storm. Hex tiles, once won from NPCs or random encounters, can be traded in for items.
 * Minor Major Character: The king of Roseheart and the Chancellor of the Republic.
 * Money Grinding: Money is sucked by the costs of new equipment very fast, so it's almost certain that you'll need to do this at one point or another. The experience gotten along with it doesn't hurt either.
 * Money Spider: Played straight. Additionally, some item drops are rather weird... why the hell can you steal rubber boots from some sort of magical thunder deer?
 * Mook Face Turn: Borderline case:
 * Mook Maker: The guard devices Watch Disc and Defensive Drone are a justified version of this, alerting pillars or guards.
 * Motive Rant:
 * Mutually Exclusive Powerups: The last two pages of Hex tiles are unique "face" tiles of which only one copy exists anywhere (barring New Game+). They're the game's most powerful tiles, but can also be traded in for powerful items, ranging from huge heaps of stat increasers or high-end expendables to accessories that grant immunity to status effects or all elements, to armor that grants 500 hit points or auto-regeneration, to the most powerful weapon in the game for one of your characters. Many can be gotten nowhere else, but once you make the trade it's permanent, probably to prevent you from "borrowing" equipment.
 * Mysterious Informant: Zawu.
 * Mysterious Waif: Lorenza.
 * New Game+: However, in order to access it
 * News Travels Fast: At some points, the protagonists receive news while on a boat without encountering any other ship or messenger.
 * Nice Hat: The only time Ethan is ever hatless is in flashbacks. Flynn has a Nice Beret, too.
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: No one among the heroes ever mentions directly that they
 * Nintendo Hard: Many of the boss battles, although some dungeons are pretty dang hard even without that.
 * No Peripheral Vision: At least once, Augustus fails to see someone in front of him because the distance is greater than the size of the screen.
 * Nominal Importance: Averted - all the characters have names, but everyone of any importance has a Character Portrait.
 * Non Lethal Bottomless Pits: As a puzzle element in the Kohlen Mine, the First Seal and the Hall of Judgement, they in some cases transport you to other areas.
 * Non-Action Guy: Matilda's husband Valentin.
 * Non-Elemental: The Grenade line of items, and the spells Laser, Rage and Gamma.
 * Noob Cave: The Abandoned Copper Mine. Your objective is to find a lost cat, and your enemies are various kinds of weak animals. This is quite a contrast to the opening scroll, which prepared you for world-shaking happenings...
 * Not So Different: Hilbert and have a lot of this going on.
 * Older Than They Look: Ethan is 28 and looks closer to 20. On the more extreme end, Castor is 30 but looks younger than 19-year-old Hilbert.
 * Omnicidal Maniac:.
 * One Degree of Separation:
 * One-Hit Kill: Various enemy attacks, most notably 's "Die! Die! Die!", will inflict instant death like a status effect unless their equipment prevents it, no questions asked.
 * One-Man Army: Felgorn has literally taken down entire armies by himself.
 * One-Time Dungeon: The . Unusual for a game in which hardly anything is Lost Forever.
 * One-Winged Angel: The Final Boss does this twice, and his final form actually does look slightly angelic. It even has two helpers called "Throne" and "Dominion".)
 * Also
 * The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Castor and Hilbert.
 * Opening Scroll: Provides an Info Dump about the backstory and mythology.
 * Opening the Sandbox: The majority of the game's sidequests are only accessible right before the final dungeon, due to the fact that that's also when you get the Global Airship.
 * Our Elves Are Better: Partially averted with the Havali since they're missing a lot of the standard elf traits, but the ears make the comparison inevitable.
 * Our Monsters Are Weird:
 * And how. The random enemies Yin and Yang, Belgugon, Ectoplasm, Starshine/Sirius Lux, Ripper, Belgugon, Tiahaunacu, Gerethog, and many others will make you say "What the heck was that?". Not to forget the Land Sharks, though Dungeons & Dragons had this kind of creature first.
 * Many bosses are even weirder, like the Riftgate, Erdgeist, the Viviones, Yad-al-Jauza and the Strangelets.
 * Out-Gambitted:, very, very badly.
 * Paper Talisman: Spellcards probably are this.
 * Parental Abandonment: Hilbert, Lorenza,, and all lost their parents at a young age.
 * Parental Substitute:
 * Party in My Pocket: Especially awkward in various cutscenes when Matilda is seemingly talking from Hilbert's pocket, including one in which he has his worldmap size on top of it!
 * Perpetual Frowner: Thorve. It's shocking when he actually smiles for the first time.
 * Personality Powers: Combined with Meaningful Name: Among others, Castor, whose name means "he who shines/excels", has a "Blinding Flash" attack.
 * Phlebotinum Rebel: borders on this.
 * Pietà Plagiarism:
 * Platonic Life Partners: Thorve is absolutely inseparable from Matilda, since she basically dragged him back into doing something with his life after . But she's married and he's quite happy as nothing more than her second-in-command and good friend.
 * Playing Both Sides:
 * Playing the Player: In addition to the whole premise of the game ("Set up the biggest Cliché Storm in RPG history, then turn it upside down"), it plays around a lot with
 * Poison Mushroom: Subverted by the Trick and Gamma spellcards, which are, in a way, two sides of the same coin. Trick's abilities are purely detrimental, with the base confusing the character and the Crisis cast killing them. However, it grants a huge boost to almost all of your stats. Gamma's abilities, on the other hand, are the strongest offensive spells in the game (see Awesome but Impractical, above), but decrease most of a character's stats.
 * Played completely straight with the Ruin equipment, which inflicts a status ailment on whoever wears it -- this cannot be prevented or cured in any way. Some of the status ailments make a character completely unusable, negating any potential advantage they might give.
 * Post End Game Content: The Planetary Consciousness.
 * Posthumous Character: Meodar and Wolfram.
 * Precursors:
 * Preemptive Apology: Hilbert, to a Mook at.
 * Prepare to Die: Said by after you are creamed by him in a Hopeless Boss Fight.
 * Psycho Serum:.
 * Puzzle Boss
 * The Riftgate is completely immune to elemental damage and extremely resistant to physical attacks, making it nearly unbeatable unless you realize it takes full damage from Laser and single-use attack items.
 * The Viviones, a group of five monsters that heal and revive each other in between blasting your party with spells, get much less annoying once you notice that each one only heals the one directly clockwise of it- if you kill one and Mindblow the one before it, it breaks the chain.
 * The second-hardest Bonus Boss, . You need to stack various means of damage protection on your sturdiest character and redirect all his attacks to them, or he will absolutely wreck you with That One Attack.
 * The Quiet One: Ethan, especially in the first half of the game.
 * Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Omega Team..
 * Ragnarok Proofing
 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: An idealistic Idiot Hero, a bad-tempered female Sergeant Rock, a traumatized healer, an 18-year-old Havali girl, an amnesiac who's been locked up for the last three years, an elderly geologist, and . Lampshaded:

"Matilda: Are we interrupting something?"
 * Rainbow Pimp Gear: Lots of probably silly-looking equipment: rubber boots, a party hat, unisex dresses... Though you sadly can't see it.
 * Random Encounters: In dungeons. However, it's possible to get items that prevent them.
 * Rare Candy: The Capsules, one for each stat. All except speed capsules can be stolen from late-game enemies.
 * Rare Random Drop: Several. For example, you can get a then-expensive polearm from the orcs in Braunwald Forest, but the chance is very low.
 * Really Three Hundred Years Old:.
 * Recurring Boss:
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning: Tiamat, along with red hair.
 * Redemption Demotion:
 * Reduced MP Cost: The Lord-Sorcerer's Gown. Also inverted with the Spellcard Mod, which doubles MP cost but multiplies damage by 1.5.
 * Revive Kills Zombie: Although it won't cause a One-Hit Kill, there's often a specific spellcard that makes taking down a boss enormously easier. Perhaps most egregiously, is about three steps away from unbeatable unless you . More literally, there are also several undead monsters that are weak to recovery magic.
 * is made much easier by doing an another tactic suggested in That One Boss entry. (See the Your Mileage May Vary page for details.)
 * Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Subverted; despite being a Dirty Coward and, is given a high rank in the Herzog army despite misgivings.
 * Rush Boss: . If you're lucky, you'll kill him without being attacked with anything remotely menacing. If you're less lucky, though, he gets off That One Attack often enough to kill you despite his low HP and defense.
 * Sacrificial Lamb:
 * Sacrificial Lion:
 * Sad Battle Music: In the boss fight against and all of the Gate to Elysium bosses.
 * Save Scumming: This is the way many players treat Hex: If they lose a tile, they just press F12 and return to the main menu.
 * Save the Villain: Justified; Doubly so when  thanks to a sudden attack of Chronic Hero Syndrome.
 * Sequential Boss: The final one.
 * Sergeant Rock: Matilda.
 * Serious Business: Hex. No, really - it's all part of a crazy Gambit Roulette by.
 * Shallow Love Interest: Valentin, Matilda's husband. Although sometimes adorable, he doesn't get much dialogue or personality and seems to exist just to avoid any thoughts of possible romantic involvements between her and Thorve or Drakovic. Even lampshaded in a dialogue where Matilda warns Drakovic that she's a married woman.
 * Ship Tease:
 * Lorenza/Ethan; they seem to be close, but the age difference makes a relationship unlikely.
 * Alison/Ethan.
 * Drakovic/Matilda. She's already married.
 * Lorenza/Hilbert; Lampshaded.

"Gunther: What are you worried about, with no enemies in sight? You think they're just going to drop down from the sky? (ladder drops and Matilda's team climbs down)"
 * Shout-Out:
 * The rare Smiley enemies are from Something Awful.
 * Mittermeyer and Reuental stand around discussing fallen heroes, ambition and seizing power in the castle of Germany-inspired Herzog.
 * Drakovic's lecture on the importance of protecting democracy in the face of a benevolent autocracy is straight from the notes of Yang Wen-Li, as are his strategies and tactics.
 * In a town, there is a witch named Marisa and a maid named Sakuya.
 * The title of the game is a play on "Final Fantasy".
 * Shrouded in Myth: Especially regarding Alexander.
 * Sidequest: Oh so many, though most of them are only accessible or doable right at the end.
 * Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Grey Peak.
 * Smash Mook: Most of the stock RPG Maker enemies and their Palette Swap versions, low-rank Mooks and also some more memorable enemies like  or Black Pawns.
 * So Long and Thanks For All the Gear: There are points in the game where one or more party members are unavailable. Usually they're not long, the exception being an entire arc without and most of it without  either once you reach, but it pays to unequip people who aren't in the active party, and to be careful who holds spellcards you can't do without, also, when beginning a New Game+.
 * Solemn Ending Theme: "Moji no dengon" by Sound Horizon.
 * Spam Attack: The Dual Strike spellcard (the Quad Strike crisis spell even more). Magical versions are Rage and Vortex, as well as some attacks possessed by boss enemies.
 * Spanner in the Works:
 * Squishy Wizard: Lorenza and Thorve.
 * Randolph is a subversion. When you meet him, he totally seems to be a "squishy scientist", but in fact, he is a Stone Wall character without a really special degree of skill in magic.
 * Standard Female Grab Area: In Lorenza's introductory cutscene, one of the soldiers trying to capture her grabs her arm. So she vaporizes him with a lightning bolt.
 * Status Buff Dispel: Disenchant.
 * Stock Video Game Puzzle: A Water Level Puzzle in the Waterway, an Invisible Floor Puzzle in the Hall of Judgement, and a Timed Switch Puzzle two other Bonus Dungeons, lots and lots of Block Puzzles of various types in the Towers, and a Frictionless Ice puzzle on Grey Peak.
 * Stock Weapon Names: The ultimate weapons of most characters, and some others; for example, Ethan's ultimate weapon is the Ragnarok, wields the Lightbringer, and Castor's glaive is known as Lifetaker.
 * Stone Wall: Randolph.
 * The Strategist: Drakovic may not be much good in a hand-to-hand fight, but he sure as hell knows what he's doing.
 * Swamps Are Evil: The Dark Marshes.
 * Swirly Energy Thingy: The Riftgate. And it attacks you.
 * Take Your Time: The Big Bad is quite content to sit in the Very Definitely Final Dungeon while you run around clearing out Bonus Dungeons and playing Hex. Justified, though; he's literally waiting for the heroes.
 * Played straight on several other occasions, though. No matter how much time it takes you to get through the Serinal Woods, the will always be on the run at the exact same spot.
 * Taking You with Me: Subverted. tries to do this, but  before anyone else is killed.
 * Tempting Fate:

"Matilda: You'd better come back alive. Otherwise I'll have no one to blame for this mess."
 * That Man Is Dead: . Which makes the artwork image you can see after completing the game where a real Tear Jerker.
 * A similar phrase is also used by when Ortas takes him from his prison cell.
 * There Are No Therapists: Most of the plot could have been prevented had seen a grief counselor and.
 * They Plotted a Perfectly Good Waste: About the first quarter of the game is a Cliché Storm purposely... only to subvert everything afterwards.
 * Thriving Ghost Town
 * Timed Mission: Sections of both and, though for differing reasons.
 * Title Theme Drop: Used as the BGM for and the Geo Science Station's projector room.
 * Too Awesome to Use:
 * Averted hard. In most boss battles, you will find yourself using those hard-found Soul Elixirs, Healing Orbs, and Meteor Shells you found during your trek through the dungeon if you want to live.
 * The "Throw" spellcard has a high damage potential, but most players won't actually exploit it since that requires permanently destroying valuable high-tier weapons.
 * Tragic Monster: Tiamat to Barasur.
 * Training Boss: Melchior.
 * Trauma Inn
 * Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Varying this trope,
 * Treachery Cover-Up: Subverted. Despite the suggestion, Wilhelm refuses to hide, choosing instead to reveal it to the public while still honoring the culprit's good deeds.
 * Trippy Finale Syndrome: The entire final dungeon seems to be designed from the ground up to confuse you as much as possible, although it's really deceptively simple to figure out. Then there's the background during the final boss battle and ...
 * Try Not to Die

"Drakovic: Ah, but a good strategist never reveals his most daring plans. Matilda: ...Why? Drakovic: That way... you don't look as bad if they fail."
 * Two Scenes, One Dialogue: Three scenes, actually, of the Info Dump variety. It occurs in, where tell your party members about.
 * Unreliable Narrator:
 * Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Invoked:
 * Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Invoked:

": It is easy to rewrite history when the few who know the truth are unable to make themselves heard."
 * Unwitting Pawn:, we're looking at you.
 * Useless Useful Spell: Gamma. It can deal epic amounts of damage, but the random factor is extreme, the MP cost is horrible, and it decreases HP and strength of the caster.
 * The Very Definitely Final Dungeon:
 * Villainous Breakdown:, ,.
 * The party actually knows about 's potential breakdown long before it happens, and tries to prevent it., on the other hand, doesn't "break down" so much as take a few moments to get some things off his chest before his.
 * Villainous Valor: The Omega Team, when they're . Bonus points go to.
 * "Wake-Up Call" Boss: The Marid King is basically a little note to players. It reads, "You thought those were boss fights? This is a boss fight. Prepare to Die." And making it worse, there's no way to backtrack; if you didn't come in with enough supplies you've got no choice but to reset to an earlier save file.
 * Weapon of Choice: Subverted. Aside from Lorenza and possibly Cool Sword user, no one in the party has a personality that fits the weapon they use.
 * The Archer is a Wide-Eyed Idealist Idiot Hero who tends to charge straight into everything.
 * The Improbable Weapon User is a laid-back and down-to-earth guy who is happy to support his superiors.
 * The Blade on a Stick user is a Hot-Blooded Sergeant Rock.
 * The guy with An Axe to Grind is a quiet Stoic.
 * The Knife Nut is a Cool Old Guy scientist who occasionally gets distracted from the main objective by ruins and artifacts.
 * They do tend to have the corresponding battle role, however. The exceptions are Randolph, who's mainly defensive, and Ethan, whose focus stat is evasion of all things. And Thorve, though his gem-claw-thing isn't common enough to have an expected role.
 * Wham! Episode:
 * The second trip to the Ether Well and conversation on the ship afterward pretty much mark the point where the plot makes a sharp turn into "Subvert ALL the tropes!" territory.
 * Wham! Line:
 * Ethan barely talks for the first quarter of the game. Then all of a sudden he drops this on us:
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: Seemingly played straight with, but
 * White and Grey Morality: Most of the villains are eventually revealed to have fairly sympathetic backstories/traits.
 * White-Haired Pretty Boy: Castor, if you go by his Character Portrait. Otherwise, Blond Guys Are Evil.
 * Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him: Subverted and justified; has enough firepower to destroy, which will bring the caverns down on top of the Big Bad. Of course, the party wants to Save the Villain instead.
 * Wide-Eyed Idealist: Hilbert, particularly at the beginning.
 * With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Tiamat.
 * Wolfpack Boss:
 * The Viviones are a quintuple boss. They also brought many players to the edge of madness, even though they're only Giant Space Fleas From Nowhere.
 * Same thing with the Strangelets, which are also five identical creatures.
 * And the six Sentry Pillars in the Ether Well.
 * Wolverine Claws: Helio.
 * Thorve's "clawgems" are something vaguely similar.
 * World of Cardboard Speech:
 * Written by the Winners:

"Hilbert: ...just give it up. You can barely move.
 * The Wrongful Heir to the Throne: The capriciously cruel and terribly incompetent Empress Helga.
 * Xanatos Gambit: Drakovic lives off of these, as he always has a backup plan. About the only time attempts to foil his machinations don't average out in his favor is when Didn't See That Coming.
 * Xanatos Speed Chess: Drakovic is good at these too, like when.
 * You All Look Familiar: Particularly obvious in Entalar; there are only three generic Havali sprites, so the town seems to be populated by an army of clones.
 * You Can Barely Stand: The party tries to point this out to before their battle, but he has none of it.
 * "NEVER! I, I'll never give up!!""


 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: While it's mostly averted with major characters, a lot of the minor characters have sprites with crazy-colored hair. But even if you assume that Matilda's apparently pink hair is just stylized auburn and Felgorn's purple hair is actually black, Flynn definitely qualifies.
 * You Shall Not Pass: A Villainous Valor example, when
 * Zen Survivor: Phantom.