Alter AILA/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Subjective tropes present in the original Alter A.I.L.A.

  • Awesome Music: Each faction's battle theme, especially the Rebel theme.
  • Non Sequitur Scene: While wandering through the sewers (in the middle of the abandoned city, mind you), one can come across a fully-operational bar, in which the bartender foreshadows the monsters to come and leaves behind a keycard. While the keycard is used later as the first step to getting an EX gun, the existence of the bar is never explained, and never really acknowledged again. Though it was possibly All Just a Dream. Or a psychic projection of the Jackal. Or AILA. Or it was something Tinder set up before the game started.
    • There's also no real explanation for Shadow Red's appearance in the Innovator route; Orange talks at him a bit before fighting, but it's never clear whether it's All Just a Dream, a psychic projection, or just a metaphor.
  • Character Tiers: The strength of characters varies wildly. Some, like Indigo and Orange, are pathetic, while characters like Black are almost Game Breaker territory.
    • Top Tier: Black (Mask Off), Grey
      High Tier: Blue, White, Black (Mask On), Green
      Mid Tier: Red, Yellow, Violet
      Low Tier: Indigo, Orange
  • Complete Monster: Psycho for Hire Red joins The Empire simply because it's the strongest of the factions and allows him to direct his bloodlust at the Imperialists' targets. An Ax Crazy lunatic who favors strength above all else, Red spends the game brutally murdering or attempting to murder everyone in his path and has designs on the throne himself. He aims to backstab the Imperials and take over himself before reigning as The Caligula. He also intends to rape Violet once he learns that she's hypnotized, only demurring when he learns that she's still fully capable of fighting back.
  • Fan Nickname: Limit Green, for the battle against Green when she's fighting at full strength.
  • Game Breaker: On the Independent route, at the vending machines before your first fight with the Imperials, grab all the Acid Bombs you can. You will win every boss fight afterwards.
    • Black's "Mind Blast" skill, too. Just buy a few Sanitizers and watch everything in your path be obliterated.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Red crosses it so many times, but most memorable is during the Imperials route, where he tortures rebels to get information about their HQ, and after obtaining it, kills them anyway. Because HE CAN.
  • Tier-Induced Scrappy: Many people hate Indigo because she is by far the weakest character, in addition to being a Bratty Half-Pint.

Subjective tropes present in the remake, Alter A.I.L.A. Genesis

  • Alas, Poor Villain: Lavitz.
  • Awesome Music: "Blast My Desire", the Battle Theme Music for Bonus Bosses and late-game Climax Bosses. For area music, the BGM for Avalon is quite nice as well.
  • Character Tiers: Despite the author's best efforts to balance characters this time around, Jake and Hawk are too weak/slow to be useful, and Indy's only use (equipping a static-damage sync and dishing out Vampire constantly) is superseded by Violet, who is better at it and less squishy.
  • Ending Fatigue: Neok admits that by the time he had gotten to writing the ending, he had begun to lose steam, and, unfortunately, it shows. The final boss fight can be a major letdown to those who played the original; Aila becomes reduced to a cardboard cutout villain with no real motive due to the fact that her Motive Rant was completely removed. The endgame also lacks the explanation of things like the Backstory and Kugar that the original had. The two postgame Bonus Dungeons originally had full subplots surrounding them as well, but had to be cut because Neok had burned himself out writing the rest of the game. Fortunately, he plans to rectify this by giving those explanations in the sequel.
    • The postgame itself can feel this way due to the above. After such a story-heavy and character-centric game, a postgame consisting of nothing but long dungeon slogging without any additional story information can feel rather dull.
  • Family-Unfriendly Aesop: "People are selfish and prideful." The fact that Leon is such a moral person is a very big deal. This is subverted by the ending, however, when the heroes all put aside their differences and agree to work towards a common goal, three of them even performing Heroic Sacrifices.
  • Fridge Brilliance: Psychokinesis is toxic to humans. The high level modes usually grant large amounts of EX and AP in exchange for health degeneration. What's probably happening is that they're amplifying the latent psychokinetic energy in the character equipping them, but, since that same energy is toxic, causes an overflow which saps their Life Force.
    • "Interference", a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere in the dam facility. It's in the shape of a large silhouette. If you look at it closely, you'll realize that it's a silhouette of Aila, and probably some form of astral projection she's using to attack the jackal. Suddenly, its actions make sense, huh?
  • Fridge Horror: Erin constantly tells Leon about how the Crapsack World will corrupt a moral person like him, and so will she, due to being a cold Anti-Hero. However, she's a moral person as well -- the reason she's telling Leon this is because she was exactly like him, and the same thing she describes happened to her. Kind of depressing.
  • Funny Moments: "Build a functional submarine out of scrap parts, no problem. Cheer up a little girl, no can do."
    • Also, some of G-Bot's questions.
    • If you choose the "talk" option during phase 5 after Jake and Dread join your party, Celia will ask why Jake looks so young. They do not give a direct answer, simply stating that the key to a youthful appearance lies in proper skincare products. The final lines of their conversation are:

Celia: So, do both you and Indy do this thing?
(Beat)
Jake: That's classified information.

Erin: When I get free from here -- and I will get free because you guys are going to get me free. And God help you if you decide to run away, because I will get free someday. And when that happens, then you had best pray for death to save you. Because nothing will stop me from hunting you down and stringing you up in the most unsightly manner. So when I get free, she better be exactly as she is now, not a hair harmed on her body. Else terrible things may happen to you, that may result in harsh physical, mental, or emotional trauma, lasting the rest of your miserable lives.

    • This exchange:

Violet: Scott, before we die, I just want to say 'I love you'!

Scott: And I just want to say 'I love cheeseburgers'!

  • Game Breaker: G.U.A.R.D.I.A.N., a sync that causes a character to always deal 1100 damage no matter what, on a character with multi-hit attacks. Indy in particular is good for this; with the right mode, she can dish out 5500 damage every other turn and heal 550 HP with every Drain spell. (Violet is also a good candidate, capable of dishing out 3300 damage per turn with her machine gun attack)
    • You can buy this sync from Tinder should you find him. You can even find this as a random treasure late in the game.
    • Also the Vice/Pulsar/Chaos modes, which gives characters tons of EX and AP per round. Only downside is that they have extreme health degeneration, but with a good source of healing such as Erin, that's not a problem.
    • Speed Boost/Crush Fields. Nothing can seriously challenge you when you're getting twelve turns to an enemy's one.
    • Devices, special items that had passive effects such as increasing experience gain, were so gamebreaking that Neok actually made them Dummied Out! You can gain them anyway by defeating the final Bonus Boss, however.
    • Equip two Zero-Systems and a Flame Bolster. Let your HP run out. Execute an EX attack. Watch the damage numbers go through the roof. One can be found in a chest, while more can be bought from Tinder within a small time frame.
    • You can also buy enhancers, which permanently raise your stats, potentially making any character in the game a tank of you can spare enough money. They cost 2,000 Creds a piece for the single enhancers, 3,000 for one that raises two stats simultaneously, and 4,000 for raising all three. Just fight machine enemies that drop common parts and sell them; for every three or so you sell can get one regular enhancer. Near the endgame, the enemies will drop Rare Parts, which sell for a whopping 10,000 Creds. Prepare to watch your stats go through the roof.
      • Note that you will need to buy a lot in order to see any worthwhile change, as they only increase your stats by pitiful amounts. They can add up, though.
  • Heartwarming Moments: Indy cheering up Celia after she goes through a Heroic BSOD early in phase 7.
    • During the ending, Kugar telling Erin that if she gave her life back to him, he would simply return it again so that she could live.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Erin.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The Orbital Prison. Especially the core.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Indy; see her character sheet for details.
  • Tear Jerker: If you didn't choke up upon seeing Lavitz's death, you have no soul.
    • The ending doesn't pull any punches either. It contains no less than three (nearly four) Heroic Sacrifices in quick succession, and Scott's is absolutely heartbreaking.
    • The cutscene explaining Hawk's backstory, where it's revealed that he formed the Rebellion -- the one group that looked like it had actual morals in the game's Crapsack World—just to preserve his pride. It's more dramatic than saddening, until Celia—a naive, six-year-old girl, looks at Hawk like she's heartbroken, and says simply, "Old man...did you really form the Rebellion...just to save your pride?"
    • The early scenes with Erin on a replay, when you know that she's lying to Leon about not being a monster...yet you also know that she desperately wants to believe those lies as well. Imagining the internal pain and confusion she's going through is rather depressing.
  • That One Boss: Ultima Weapon and Limit Leon are one of the few fights where you're pretty much guaranteed to say "screw this" and just chuck bombs.
    • Also, GWeapon. It takes half damage from all Attack abilities, and there's only one character on your team at that point who is even capable of using a Spell-type ability. To make matters worse, it has a constant Debilitate field effect, which can render you helpless if you haven't bought a ton of Animant effects to cancel it out.
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