Infinity Blade

Infinity Blade is a 2010 action game for the iOS (iPad and iPhone) operating system. It was developed by Chair Entertainment, best known for Shadow Complex, utilizing Unreal Engine3.

In the game's tutorial, a nameless warrior faces off against the villainous God King. The God King easily dispatches the warrior, adding his strength to the titular Infinity Blade.

19-21 years later, the warrior's son returns to kill the God King. If the second warrior is killed (which is likely, considering how tough the God King is), his son will return to continue the cycle (called a bloodline in game). The third warrior's son takes up arms after the death of his father, and so on. Bloodline after bloodline rises up to fight the God King.

The game plays like a swordfighting version of Punch-Out!!. Enemies are fought one at a time and player movement is limited to quick dodges rather than actual sidestepping during fights. The warrior can also block and parry attacks, and retaliate with his own sword or magic spells.

As the warrior kills enemies, he gets gold to buy better equipment and experience to make him a better fighter.

In October 4th of 2011, Brandon Sanderson released "Infinity Blade: Awakening", a novella derived from the game. It tells the tale of Siris, one of the bloodline, who are styled Sacrifices, after he has defeated the God King.

A sequel was released on December 1st of 2011. It reveals that the "bloodlines" of the previous game were, in fact, the same person, who is a reincarnating immortal that had suffered amnesia.

Tropes used in Infinity Blade include:

Affably Evil: The God King is complimentary of your skills and even offers you a job. If you accept, he forgoes the usual villain betrayal and informs you that he needs your help in dealing with the Deathless Kings, who are actually far, far worse than he is.
- If you reject his offer, he gets pissed off and starts putting his all into kicking your ass.
- Easoleum, one of the Deathless Kings is like this, with his pre-fight dialog implying that he only wants to fight you because you are being manipulated by the God King.
All There in the Manual: The novella serves as the manual in this case.
Anti-Villain: The God King, arguably.
Badass Beard: Easoleum has a good one.
BFS: Even the swords that look small in the shop are massive in game.
Big No: at the end of Infinity Blade II.
Bling of War: Easoleum has really fancy golden armor.
Bloodless Carnage: There's some pretty brutal finishing moves, but none of the High-Pressure Blood you'd expect.
Bonus Boss: Three of them in the Deathless Kings, which require the Infinity Blade to even fight, and even with that they are pretty hard. Defeating all of them unlocks another bonus boss, the Zero Mech/Ancestor.
Bottomless Pit: The second part of the Bonus Dungeon, complete with the possibility of knocking an enemy into it.
Bribing Your Way to Victory: Using real money, players can buy massive amounts of gold. Because gold can be turned into experience points, with enough money you could have every weapon and a maxed-out character before you fight your first enemy.
Calling the Old Man Out: The Warrior will call out a clone(?) of the Ancestor for supporting the God King's agenda. This after generations of his descendants have sacrificed themselves trying to end his tyranny.
Class and Level System: An unusual example. Experience points are drained away from equipped items into the warrior after battles. Each piece of equipment has a set amount of points. When it's completely drained ("mastered"), any points you would get from using it are lost.
Cool Sword: Lots, and also cool maces, cool clubs, and cool axes.
Coup De Grace Cutscene: After every battle.
Curb Stomp Battle: The God King delivers one of these to the first warrior in a cutscene. If you aren't prepared for him, he'll do the same thing to you for dozens of bloodlines.
Cutscene Incompetence: In the intro fight, the Dark Knight casually knocks away your sword and shield after a quick sparring match and then the God King One Hit Kills you. This is understandable at the beginning, but restarting the bloodline lets you keep your previous levels and equipment. Which means you can be higher level than the God King and wielding the Infinity Blade and they still treat you as a harmless Idiot Hero.
- The Warrior controlled during the tutorial doesn't share the levels and equipment of his descendants, so he is still a relatively low level warrior with lackluster equipment. Still counts, since the Dark Knight disarms him regardless of the player's skill.
  - And give the guy some credit, he was able to make it to the throne room past any of the God King's servants that were in his way.
Cycle of Revenge: Not in its standard form, but the game is pretty much defined by it, as Bloodline after Bloodline throws themselves at the God King for no better reason than that he killed the previous Bloodline. The ending you get when you say "screw it" and take the God King's We Can Rule Together offer is arguably the good ending, as, as cool as it is, all the Warrior accomplishes in the other is drawing the attention of the Deathless while killing what could have been his greatest ally against them.
Doing In the Wizard: The ending you get for defeating the God King is this. Your warrior notices a small digital control panel on the God King's throne. When touched, it activates a hidden mechanical projector, and a giant Hologram of the planet appears, implying that the Deathless are an advanced alien race. The glowing, touch-interface device on the throne may be a Shout-Out to the iPhone, as Infinity Blade was the phone's equivalent of a blockbuster release.
- The secret boss takes place in a cloning lab, and his first phase is a Mini-Mecha.
- There are also the various Mini-Mecha that you fight, the Iron Golems and such.
- And as part of this, we also get a(n) Earth All Along reveal -- the planet shown in the image initially shows unfamiliar landmasses, but Eurasia, Australia, and Africa rotate into view before the end of the scene. Given the high technology and the literally shattered moon, it's probably of the After the End type.
The Dragon: The Death Knight always comes back as the right-hand man of the God King, no matter how many times you kill him.
Drop the Hammer: Literally, huge-type enemies will sometimes smash the ground before taking a swing at you.
Dual-Wielding: Several enemies do this, but you can't - not 'til the sequel, at least.
Endless Game: If you manage to defeat the God King, you get a cool ending sequence and start a new bloodline. You can repeat this sequence of events as long as you want.
Fan Disservice: The Warden enemy is naked except for a loin-cloth, but is extremely fat with this huge scar across his belly and has a freaky spiky headgear instead of a head.
Gameplay and Story Integration: The novella reveals the story behind many of the gameplay elements, such as why all the enemies are fought one at a time, why the warrior always has the equipment of his father, and so on.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: When you finally manage to defeat the God King, the ending cutscene shows you stealing the Infinity Blade and killing him with it. Yet, this does not gain the Infinity Blade, for it must instead be purchased like any other weapon. This is especially-jarring as a big part of the novella's plot is that killing the God King does result in getting the Infinity Blade.
Generation Xerox: Justified with the sequel's revelation.
Going Through the Motions: The warrior's weapons include swords, axes, morningstars and other weapons, yet his kill animations never change. This results in situations such as stabbing an axe straight through an enemy's stomach, or stabbing a mace through the back of a golem's neck.
Guide Dang It: You have to commit suicide in the intro fight against the Dark Knight to enter the negative Bloodlines. Easy enough if you know the secret, but practically impossible to figure out on your own.
Hopeless Boss Fight: The intro fight with the Dark Knight is this due to the above mentioned Cutscene Incompetence. Your first few fights against the God-King are going to be this for all intents as well.
Identical Grandson: Part of the gameplay!
I Need You Stronger: Or rather, your son, and his son after that, and...
In the Hood: Bonus Boss Kuero.
Infinity+1 Sword: The eponymous Infinity Blade, carried by the God King. Unusually, you don't get it by beating him, you have to save up for it in the shop.
- In the New Game+, you can gain even more powerful sci-fi themed equipment.

Kleptomaniac Hero: Justified, the God King really did leave that treasure around just for you (apparently he's even kind enough to donate it to your next of kin.)
Minimalism: The engine actually does allow the player to run around like in a traditional action game but the developers decided against allowing the player to do so as they felt it would be a waste of time.
Mook Chivalry: Your enemies come one at a time, and kindly wait for you to loot any treasure nearby and heal up if you wish. Again justified because the God King actually wants you to reach him.
Names to Run Away From Really Fast: The God King and his Infinity Blade.
New Game+: Justified in the story. Each new game is a descendant of the previous warrior. It's also mandatory, because you can't retry if you lose to the God King.
- After you defeat the Bonus Boss, you can do a proper new game +, where you can master equipment twice and access the most powerful items.
Player Preferred Pattern: Averted due to the experience system detailed above. If you keep using a mastered weapon, you're missing out on EXP and slowing your leveling to a crawl. You have to constantly switch equipment to continue leveling up.
Railing Kill: The opponent on the bridge is always shield-bashed off into the void below. The opponent on the staircase next to the front gate is always knocked off and falls onto the courtyard below.
Reverse Grip: The warrior does this for many of his kill animations.
Sequel Hook: If you ally with the God King, he mentions that there are even more powerful and evil Deathless in the world (some of which act as bonus bosses in the Deathless Kings update), and if you kill him, his last words are "They're coming for you next".
- Pretty much all of the Ancestor's pre-fight dialog heavily imply the God King has a secret plan.
Shout-Out: The New Game Plus Helmet and Armour you get are the Fusion Helmet and Omega Armour from the developer's previous game: Shadow Complex.
Slouch of Villainy: The God King must have really terrible back problems by the third or fourth generation...
Speaking Simlish: Just to draw one of several comparisons to the Team Ico Series, the game uses a fictional language for all the in game dialogue.
- Humorously, it seems the word for blade in that language is infinity.
Useless Useful Spell: As you advance in bloodlines, offensive magic and elemental weaponry become less and less powerful. The God King is immune to all magic and elemental effects after the first time you beat him, and The Ancestor is also immune to everything.
- Despite this, magic is still the most powerful stat in the game, simply because it lets you cast heal more often. With enough magic stat, you eventually have effectively infinite health.
Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Averted, he gets more powerful as you do.
Villainous Harlequin: The Wood Jester
Was Once a Man: The God King was once a mortal.
We Can Rule Together: The God King offers you to join him after the first stage of the fight. If you accept, he tells you that the two of you need to work together to defeat even worse evils. Then the credits roll and you're placed back at the beginning of the fight. The only way to advance to a new bloodline is to kill the God King or be killed yourself.
- Canonically, the Ancestor is a warrior who did accept the offer.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: The God King's motivation for wanting to kill the other Deathless is because they are all corrupt.
You Killed My Father: The plot of the game, taken to the extreme.

Additionnally, the novella "Infinity Blade: Awakening" provides examples of:

Action Girl: Isa. But she can cook too.
Amnesiac Dissonance: The Dark Thoughts are revealed to be Siris' original persona's memory.
Complete Monster: Ausar is heavily implied to be this in both the novel and the game's sequel, not only by everyone who speaks of him, but also the dark thoughts that Siris is getting throughout the novel. However, it is also implied that his Memory Gambit is his attempt at atoning for what he has done. This trope ends up leading to...
Even Evil Has Standards: Raidriar/The God King makes it perfectly explicit that he doesn't think Ausar/Siris deserves any kind of honor because he is a Complete Monster. Or, at least, he used to be.

Siris: What of honor?
The God-King: There are some I give honor, but not you, Ausar. Never you.
Siris: What? I fought you with honor. I killed you with honor.
The God-King: And I do believe that was the only time in your awful life that you ever showed honor to another.

It Was with You All Along: Siris' goal is to find a way to activate the Blade so that it can kill Deathless permanently. He only realized later that by killing the Ancestor, he already have activated the Blade.
Memory Gambit: It turns out that Siris/Ausar has been playing one for centuries -- though as of the end of the novella, neither the reader nor Siris know exactly why.
- Even the God-King thinks he had been masterfully played, but not by Ausar, but rather, by the Worker of Secrets.
Magic From Technology: how some of the Deathless' powers work, possibly all of them. Some of the equipments have security question in case you forget the pass phrase.
Our Souls Are Different: It's called Quantum Identity Pattern (Q.I.P.).
The Reveal: Numerous!
- The Ancestor is one of Siris' previous reincarnation's son.
- The God-King's real name is Raidriar.
- The warriors (of whom Siris is the latest) are actually a Deathless, named Ausar. And, what's more, the God-King knew it.
- The warriors are the only ones who can use the rings of magic, explaining why the enemies of the first game never used any.
- The significance of the Infinity Blade is that it can kill the Deathless permanently.
Shoe Phone: The magic rings you have been collecting in the game also served as the God King's listening device.
Spanner in the Works: Isa killed Siris before the God King managed to stab Siris with the Infinity Blade, which would have resulted in Siris' permanent death. This also alerted the God King that someone knew the nature of the Deathless better than what should have been known.
Tomato in the Mirror:Siris himself is a Deathless who arranged to be reincarnated into a baby with his memory wiped each times he dies.

Infinity Blade 2 provides examples of:

Acrofatic: Thane looks big and fat, but he's capable of moving extremely fast.
- Sorta. It's difficult to tell, considering he's pretty damn tall, and he has all that armor on, for all we know, he could be rather strong and muscular, which would explain his ease of movement despite the armor.
Anti-Magic: The Worker of Secrets has the ability to distrupt Deathless' Quantum Identity Pattern and kill them permanently. This also applies to the Infinity Blade that he forged.
A Taste of Power: You start with the Infinity Blade and some other really good gear.
Bait and Switch Boss: The introduction to the Stone Demon, the second Blood Sentinel and guardian of the bridge seal. The knight you first see starts cursing at you and promising to rip the flesh from your bones...then a winged stone golem--the real Stone Demon--drops down and crushes him.
Batman Gambit: The end of the game is a Batman Gambit, as the Worker tries to get Siris to fight Raidriar. Of course, this could easily have been avoided had he simply stopped to listen, but the Worker knew that Siris hated Raidriar enough to attack him first and think later, and that Raidriar hated Ausar enough to not consider Siris worthy of respect or enlightening about the nature of the Worker.
Beehive Barrier: If you look carefully, you'll notice that the gold portions of the armor worn by the God-King and the Worker of Secrets are made of hexagonal scales.
Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Behemid.
Boss Rush: The fights before the God King.
Big No: Siris gives one after the Worker of Secrets imprisons him
Call Back: Six months later, while walking up to a cliff and looking at a big tower: "Worker, I will free you."
Dangerously Genre Savvy: The first game's events seem to have taught the God-King to heed the Evil Overlord List.

Siris: Give me a sword. Fight me!
The God-King: I think not. You... surprised me, last time. I don't think I'll put myself in that position again.

Degraded Boss: In the 3rd fight with Thane (right after his 2nd fight) he has much less HP and attack power than in the 2nd fight.
Disney Villain Death: Happens to Thane in the second fight. He gets better, though.
Downer Ending: Turns out Ausar imprisoned the Worker of Secrets, and in revenge he imprisons Siris to get himself out. Although in the post-credit scene Isa is shown coming to the Vault, readying her weapon.
Dual-Wielding: One of the three weapon types - focuses more on dodging and quick attacks, and can't block.
Eaten Alive: This will happen to you if you fail to release yourself from a Monstrosity's jaws before your HP dips to zero. The monster will pick Siris up in its jaws and devour him.
Evil Brit: The Deathless now speak with British accents.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: Not with the Infinity Blade, this time, actually. The Worker of Secret steals it in the ending. Some weapons (such as Thane's), however, end up being a different type of weapon than how their original user wields it - Thane's weapon appears to be a "light" sword, but when you use it, it's a dual weapon.
Hey, It's That Voice!: Troy Baker Laura Bailey voice Siris and Isa.
Late Arrival Spoiler: The tutorial scene spoils the ending of the novella, although nothing much is explained about it, unlike in the novella.
Meaningful Name: Very subtle. Ausar is one of the suspected original Kemetian pronunciations for the god we call Osiris--and remember who it is that keeps getting reborn from death. Going by this, you could also make connections between several other characters and Egyptian neteru. Saydhi/Seth, Isa/Isis, Raidriar/Ra.
Names to Run Away From Really Fast: The God King's real name, Raidriar, doesn't undermine his image by any means. When you finally take him on as the final boss, his full name and title Raidriar the God King only serves to underline how powerful this guy is.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Siris's steadfast belief that freeing the Worker of Secrets would save the world gets shattered fast when the Worker reveals that he just trapped Siris in the Vault, and that he has every intention of making all the other Deathless into his own personal army of conquest.
Not Quite Dead: So you knocked Thane off tower and descend into Worker of Secrets' prison, then when you approach him, Thane appears again to fight you, but...see Degraded Boss.
Oh Crap: Siris's reaction when the God-King appears.
Scenery Porn: Non-combat sequences have been added which allow the player to pan around the Unreal Engine 3 scenery and tap on hidden items to obtain them. This has the added benefit of showing off how well optimized the graphics are for an iOS title especially compared to the first game, but the developers have once again eschewed free movement.
Schizo-Tech: The guy who guards the third seal wears jet boots and fight you by riding a giant robot he's been fixing. In addition, the various living brutes and knights throughout the Vault are joined by very obvious Mecha-Mooks.
Schmuck Bait: After killing the first boss with the Infinity Blade, Siris finds a stone with an Infinity-Blade-shaped aperture, just like the one that unlocked the God-King's lab. It takes his sword and disappears.

The God-King: Yes... I thought you might fall for that. You opened the pathway to my dungeons, after all.

Sealed Evil in a Can: The Worker of Secrets is probably as bad as, if not worse than the other Deathless. The Archivist and the Exo-Pilot who controls Goliath definitely consider the former to be the case.
Speaking Simlish: The very first line spoken by Isa, but Averted for the rest of the game.
Suddenly Voiced: Everyone suddenly speaks English.
Turtle Power: The Chelon is a gigantic turtle with a clear hankering for Siris flesh.

"Perhaps your descendants will fare better."