Frozen Essence

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Mina, the mysterious protagonist.
In a World balanced by essence, you play as a girl unsealed from her Crystal Prison. Without a memory and with dark powers feared by many, will she get by? Will she find love? With the guidance and protection from the oracle within her realm, her journey begin.
—Description on game's official website

Frozen Essence is a Freeware otome Visual Novel created by VenusEclipse. The story centers around Mina, an Ill Girl who has been sealed in a giant crystal for 1,000 years, but as she has no memories from before that time, she doesn't know who put her there or why. One day, a strange, hooded figure breaks her out of her icy prison. She wakes up hundreds of days later in a protective realm that she apparently mentally created, cared for by an Oracle and her three bodyguards, Rune, Caius, and Aysel who are responsible for bringing Life essence to Mina in order to keep her awake and alive.

Although Mina must stay confined to the realm she has created for her safety, her curiosity causes her to venture outside the protective field and into a nearby village where a festival is being held. As the story progresses, we learn more about the characters, not only including Mina, the Oracle, and her bodyguards, but also others who she meets at the festival, some of which are trying to kill her. From there, things get worse.

Although the plot narrows according to whose path you choose, the whole story can only be pieced together after reaching 100% completion, or by exploring every man’s path.

The latest version can be found at the creator’s website.

Tropes used in Frozen Essence include:
  • Amnesiac Lover
  • Attempted Rape: Some guards of the White Order responsible for guarding Mina try to rape her; she kills them in retaliation.
  • Barrier Maiden: Mina acts as this for the Death Essence, while Rune is the male equivalent for the Life Essence.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: When Mina is stuck in the woods with Caius, their forced cohabitation leads to some tension between the two.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Rune's "True End."
  • Career Killer: Caius is revealed to have descended from a clan of assassins, and later during Rune’s path, Oryon hires him to kill Rune.
  • Chosen One: Those who have the ability to harvest life essence or are chosen to guard a Hex Monument are far and few.
  • Combat Sadomasochist: Caius
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: Happens in Rune's ending, at the hands of the Complete Monster.
  • Cry Cute: Caius completely breaks down in his Light path after Mina almost dies saving him, pinpointing the moment where he goes from a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk to a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
  • Crystal Prison
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Mina is the embodiment of "The Death Sphere". Naturally, this makes it hard for her to win friends.
  • Dramatic Unmask: In the Water Path, Mina accidentally pulls off the Oracle's hood enough to see his face. The player doesn't recognize the character (whose face isn't shown in any other path), but Mina does and the shock is enough to break her out of her Trauma-Induced Amnesia.
  • Energy Absorption: Mina is capable of absorbing the Dark Essence, and acts as a vessel in containing it.
  • First Girl Wins: The first attainable character Mina meets is Rune, whose path is the only one that has a possible "True End", so he appears to fit this trope as well as a Dating Sim character can. ...Unless you remember that Mina actually met the Oracle before Rune, and if you unlock his path, it reveals that he's actually Mina's childhood friend who met her long before any other character in the game did.
  • Four Man Band: Mina's bodyguards seem to fit these roles, minus The Big Guy.
  • Golden Ending: Frozen Essence is notable in that its "True End" is a Bittersweet Ending with Rune, Mina's main love interest, dying. However, the True End differs from all other endings in that it's the only one in which Mina is separated from the Death Sphere and hence is able to lead a normal life, in contrast to the other "happy" endings where she gets to be with her love interest but is still confined or restricted in some way due to her status as the feared Death Sphere. Additionally, many players consider the Water Path's Light End to be another "true end" of sorts because it's the only one in which the mysteries surrounding Mina's identity and her dreams that remain unexplained in even the True End are resolved with her regaining her memories and reuniting with her childhood love.
  • Golden Path: The only path that solves the mysteries of Mina's lost memories and dreams and explains a lot of things that show up in other paths is the Water Path, which is unlocked only if the player doesn't fulfill the requirements for any other path. Interestingly, the game's proclaimed "True End" is actually on another path (the Life Path) but explicitly states that Mina never regains her memories, hence still leaving the player in the dark about much of the game's backstory.
  • Healing Factor: Rune, who is also immortal and eternally youthful because he is the vessel for the Life Essence.
  • Ill Girl: Mina constantly needs more life essence in order to remain awake and moving.
  • In the Hood: The Oracle.
  • I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Zareh towards Mina in the Light Path, when he decides to help Mina help Rune escape.
  • I Will Wait for You: Zareh to Mina.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Caius initially appears to be a typical Troubled but Cute Loveable Rogue who claims that he's helping Mina just because it benefits him and doesn't care if she gets herself hurt or not only because of his Dark and Troubled Past. Except that in most paths, it turns out that he wasn't lying about looking out for only himself and killing being the only thing he cares about after he joins the enemy's side and attempts to kill his former companions without a shred of hesitation or remorse. He does prevent the Big Bad Oryon from recapturing Mina and Rune in Rune's path, but only because he wants revenge on Oryon and to be the one who kills Rune in the end.
  • Jerkass: Caius is insulting and sarcastic most of the time.
  • Knife Nut: Caius
  • Knight in Shining Armor: Aurelius
  • Knight Templar / Light Is Not Good: The White Order.
  • Lady of War: Cascade
  • Last of His Kind: Caius
  • The Last Thing You Ever See: Oryon says this to Mina, when he decides to freeze her.
  • MacGuffin Girl: Everyone is after Mina because she is containing the Death Sphere.
  • Mercy Rewarded: Not using Mina's destructive power on Caius after he severely injures Rune during the Life Path allows him to live long enough to thwart Oryon from recapturing Mina and Rune. Doing the opposite causes Caius to die of his wounds instead and leads to one of the game's worst endings.
  • Mr. Exposition: When you seek him out for information, the Oracle is more than willing to explain who you are, where you are, why the place exists, and what the Hex monuments are.
  • Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Being nice and helpful to Varian causes him to become visibly uncomfortable and tell Mina outright that helping him will not help her. It doesn't stop him from helping Oryon capture and attempt to reseal her, although he's clearly wracked with guilt/doubt about this. On the other hand, pulling this off on him again during his path with the right choices does result in him having a change of heart at the last minute about his plan to reseal Mina.
  • Older Than They Look: Mina, Rune, Oracle/Zareh and all the elite members of the White Order.
  • The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Caius' attitude towards Rune during Rune’s path.
  • Ontological Mystery: Mina wakes up in a crystal with no memory at all. This extends to not only her identity and past, but also the very nature of the world she lives in.
  • Powered by a Forsaken Child: The White Order figured out that they could protect people from the harmful rays of the Death sphere by using imprisoned orphans as a buffer.
  • Psycho for Hire: Caius
  • Rival Turned Evil: Caius during Rune’s path, who starts off as a Jerkass towards Rune, but escalates to working as an assassin sent after Rune and Mina by Oryon.
  • Secret Character: Not completing the requirements for any character's path unlocks Zareh's path.
  • The Stoic: Rune
  • Unlucky Childhood Friend: Zareh unless you choose his path.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: This is invoked if you do not complete most of the endings, as after the cave-in during the failed ritual, you typically only get to see the details pertinent to the love interest's path you have chosen, and you don't learn the whereabouts of the other characters.
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy: Zareh who, in spite of being one of the leaders of the White Order and hiding his face underneath a black hood for most of the game, is one of the kindest characters in the game who helps Mina as best as he can and values her happiness above everything else. (Except in his Dark End, where he becomes creepily possessive of Mina.)
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: Rune feels this as a consequence of being immortal as a result of being the Barrier Maiden for the Life Essence.
  • Yandere: Zareh's Dark ending has him becoming one.