Magna Carta 2

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"Absolutely do not die."

Juto is your typical amnesiac Idiot Hero, carefree and without purpose in life. He spends his days lazing around his home of Highwind Island being prodded by his guardian Melissa and trying to overcome a crippling aversion to swords. His peaceful days come to an end when a war between two armies vying for control of the throne of Lanzheim crashes onto the shores of his home.

Former Prime Minister Schuenzeit has assassinated the queen and seized the throne for himself. Princess Rzephillda- the late queen's last surviving heir- raises an army to oppose him, only to find themselves out-gunned by the powerful Sentinel weapons deployed by Schuenzeit's "Northern Forces". Seeking the secrets to Sentinel creation, Rzephillda's "Southern Forces" follow a tip-off that leads them to Highwind Island. When the Northern Forces, led by a notorious assassin called "Elgar the Regicide", catch up to them, the island is plunged into conflict and Juto is swept into the war.

Magna Carta 2 is a Surprisingly Improved Sequel to the original Magna Carta, getting rid of a lot of problems of the original while offering an epic -- if cliched -- story and a real-time battle system with no random encounters. Oh, and a lot of eye candy.

Tropes used in Magna Carta 2 include:
  • Action Girl: Rue and Melissa are the best examples, although Zephie is certainly take-charge.
  • Action RPG
  • All There in the Manual: The last-names of the main cast, as well as Rue's full name (Siara Rue Tessia), are all in the artbook. Only Zephie and Crocell have their last names mentioned in-game.
  • Amnesiac Dissonance
  • Animals Hate Him: Juto, in the third DLC Live Drama
  • Arc Words: "Absolutely do not die".
  • Artificial Human: Juto and Elgar.
  • Beard of Evil: Schuenzeit and Alex.
  • As Long as It Sounds Foreign: In Magna Carta 2, several names are ridiculously German-sounding, such as Big Bad Schuenzeit and the world called Lanzheim.
  • Big Bad: Strass, aka Schuenzeit, aka Srats, aka Taats, aka whatever the hell name he uses whenever he produces a duplicate of himself and uses it to start a war.
  • Bribing Your Way to Victory: The DLC weapons (price: 400MS) are the most powerful weapons in the game, and you can equip them almost immediately. Worse still, they're required if you're trying to get all the achievements, including the ones for collecting every single weapon.
  • Cloning Blues: Elgar. For that matter, Schuenzeit.
  • Costume Porn: About every other outfit is ultra fancy.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: The Doomseeds turn out to be just nature's way of saying "quit being so hard on me!". However it is also revealed that Schuenzeit/Strass can control them at will.
  • Design Student's Orgasm
  • Eyes of Gold: Juto, but only when he taps into his Sentinel powers.
  • Fallen Hero: Strass. He committed genocide on the Carta race, used their kan to power his kamond- and La Strada- and rewrote the history books to make himself the selfless hero. When this supply of kan ran low, he created a duplicate of himself named Taats and started a war so that he could gather more kan. Victorious, he did the same thing again 150 years later as Srats, and another 150 years after that as Schuenzeit.
  • Fiery Redhead: Crocell and Melissa both have magenta hair, and have the personality to a tee. Moreso for Crocell, who uses lots of actual fire.
  • Five-Bad Band:
  • Five-Man Band:
  • Game Breaker: The DLC weapons are the strongest weapons in the game, and can be used almost immediately.
  • Glass Cannon: Crocell has a ridiculous level of offensive ability, especially if you use his Knuckle style. This is off-set by his low defense and HP.
  • Going Through the Motions: Characters gesture with their arms while they speak. This would work as a means of making the characters appear more animated, except there's only about four different animations. One scene in particular turns to Narm because of this: the impact of a powerful and sinister speech to a gathered crowd is undercut by the fact that it looks like the speaker is juggling invisible apples for five straight minutes.
  • Green Aesop
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Everyone tries to get Zephie to do one. Even she tries to pull the trigger.
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: The English Dub features a veritable who's who of American voice actors, including full cast-reunions of the American dubs of both Cowboy Bebop and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.)
  • Hero with Bad Publicity: Your party gets this treatment after Schuenzeit convinces the populous that sacrificing Zephie to La Strada is the only way to stave off destruction, effectively leaving the Mare as your only real allies. The effect remains after you take down La Strada, though not as bad by the time three years have passed, as the people have noticed that they are still alive, despite Schuenzeit's claims.
  • Hidden Elf Village: Cota Mare. Subverted in that while everyone knows about it, very few people go there since the Mare are wary of other races. And by wary, we mean that the welcoming party includes spears and paralysing incense.
  • Human Resources: This is how Sentinels are made. Life force is also used to power La Strada, which keeps Lanzheim prosperous.
  • Idiot Plot: Most of the conflict in the game arises because everyone in Lanzheim (including the heroes) believes what the villains say without question, even after it becomes bloody obvious how evil they are.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Celestine uses a bottle of incense to fight with in her "Aroma" fighting style.
    • Zephie uses a fan. Not a battle fan like Kitana, but a fan on a long stick she shoots magic from.
  • Interspecies Romance: Celestine and Argo.
  • It Is Pronounced "Tro-PAY": Mare is pronounced "mahr-ray", Trewa is "tray-wha", Huaren is "hue-are-ren".
  • Journey to the Center of the Mind: The party embark on one to free Juto from Schuenzeit's control.
  • Kill It with Fire: Crocell.
  • Lethal Chef: Zephie.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Rue. Literally.
  • Love At First Sight: Celestine, for Argo. Note that Argo is a massive Dragon/Hawk creature.
  • Love Freak: Celestine.
  • Malaproper: Celestine, in the third DLC Live Drama.
  • Mad Scientist: Huaren
  • Male Gaze: The first shot we see of Celestine is of her boobs.
  • Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Celestine has shades of this.
  • Marked Change: Juto, when he taps into his Sentinel powers.
  • Mask Power: Elgar.
  • Our Elves Are Better: The Mare civilization: Humans with crystal ears that live half as long as normal humans but are all incredibly pretty and have awesome magical powers. And, of course, they hate normal humans.
  • Older Than They Look: Rue.
  • Parental Abandonment: Not one member of your party has a known living parent. Juto was created in a lab, Zephie's mother killed by Schuenzeit (no mention of her father), Crocell's parents were killed during the war, Celestine's mother died when she was a baby, while her father was captured by the Northern Forces and turned into a crazed Sentinel (though she does get to meet his ghost); Argo and Rue's parents are never mentioned, though are almost certainly no longer around.
  • Pimped-Out Dress: Princess Rzephillda of course wears one, but other girls wear some fancy dresses.
  • Paint It Black: Two races have evil counterparts that are identical, except black: the Nekojack for the Nekoneko, and the Blackhorn Trewa to the Bluemoon Trewa.
  • Power Glows: Juto, when he taps into his Sentinel powers. It reaches its apex when he uses Celestial Crusher, his ultimate attack.
  • Proud Warrior Race Guy: Argo, although most other Trewa you meet hate his guts, either for letting his Bluemoon village get sacked, or BECAUSE he's a Bluemoon.
  • Redemption Equals Death: A mild inversion. Melissa realizes that Schuenzeit and the Northern Forces are actually in the wrong, and switches sides, even fighting alongside the party for a short time. However, Schuenzeit's Dragon, Claire sets off a failsafe she planted with Melissa turning her into a monster. So while the act of redemption doesn't lead directly to her death, Claire made sure it would happen that way anyway.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Zephie not only fights on the front line, but as a part of the "Counter-Sentinel Unit" formed to take down the weapons that are destroying entire armies. This is despite the wishes of a lot of nobles in the Southern Forces, who are understandably concerned about what would happen if their only claim to the throne died in action.
  • Showgirl Skirt: Celestine's outfit has a short skirt that wraps halfway behind the waist.
  • Skunk Stripe: Juto.
  • Smug Snake: Alex doesn't even try to hide how slimy he is. Big surprise when it turns out he's in cahoots with Schuenzeit.
  • Stripperiffic: Even in this game, Melissa wins the prize. Her first outfit is essentially just a bra and mini-skirt. Her second outfit is a Chainmail Bikini with a skirt that barely covers her crotch.
  • Super Prototype: Juto, AKA First Elgar.
  • Surprisingly Improved Sequel
  • Terminally Dependent Society: Lanheim is dependant on La Strada, which provides the world with so much magical energy that they haven't needed to farm food for over one thousand years. Two years after its destruction, people are getting on just fine with traditional farming methods.
  • The Atoner: Notably Juto, though both Zephie and Argo show traits of this as well.
  • The Napoleon: Crocell, although his in-game sprite never shows it. Juto and Celestine see it, though.
  • The Reveal: Juto is Elgar. And it is SO. DRAWN. OUT.
  • The Stinger: It is implied that Juto spent the last three years getting better. Somehow.
  • The Stoic: Rue, though she's largely changed during the ending.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: La Strada, complete with trippy purple sky and HR Giger-esque architecture.
  • This Is My Story: Juto narrates the entire story. His narration is horribly melodramatic.
  • Time Skip: The ending is set three years after slaying the final boss.
  • Tragic Monster: Melissa, Vaizen and the Sentinels in general.
  • Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Juto underwent this before the story started. But it wasn't caused by the trauma of war: rather, it was a breakdown of his mental systems caused when he accidentally violated the primary directive given to him by Schuenzeit.
  • Twenty Bear Asses: A large portion of the side quests follow this formula.
  • The Vamp: Claire.
  • The Woman Wearing the Queenly Mask: Zephie, although she's a princess.
  • Villains Never Lie: Everyone in Lanzheim has a serious case of gullibility. Even your own party members.
  • "Wake-Up Call" Boss: Several of the later bosses are capable of killing you in a few combos, though Belial is likely the first one that will give you trouble, as it spams heal when low on life, and the only way to finish it is to skill rush him (provided you've been upgrading them), or equip the DLC weapons.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Schuenzeit aka Strass and his cronies want to keep Lanzheim prosperous, but seem to have no problem with committing countless atrocities to keep it that way.
    • Raud becomes one at the end of the game after his betrayal. He believes that sacrificing Zephie to La Strada is wrong and the cycle should be broken, but too many people have died for the cycle to end now. His intention is to sacrifice Zephie, and break the cycle the next time around, with no war.
  • What an Idiot!: Melissa. After the Northern Forces raze her homeland and nearly kill her, she somehow believes everything they tell her about their reasons and joins them. When she finds out that they've been lying to her, she's polite enough to hand her notice into Claire first. Claire warns her that Bad Things will happen if she switches sides, pointing out Melissa's mysterious chest pains and how she miraculously became good as new after almost being killed by Elgar. Melissa ignores this, joins your party for about ten minutes, dismisses her chest pains as "nothing" (when in the presence of the one friendly character with the experience to identify and fix the problem), and then is promptly turned into a Sentinel and forced to be put down.
    • Raud. While he has several moments showing that he is a good tactican, his status as "adviser" leaves much to be desired. Even though he finds out that Alex is in cahoots with Schuenzeit and is manipulating the course of the war, he waits until after the next battle to say anything to Zephie, by which time Alex and Schuenzeit have skipped town. This is despite the fact that he is present at said battle and doesn't even hint that anything is amiss when you talk to him. Then he decides to believe what the villains say and turns on Zephie.
    • Schuenzeit has a particularly stupid moment before the game even starts. Why was he so surprised that Juto fought so hard to save Zephie when he himself implanted Juto with the command that "you must not allow the princess to be killed", even going so far to add the condition, "this order supersedes all others"? You could argue that this single act is the root cause of everything that goes wrong with his plans.
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy: Juto's hair goes full white after you sever Schuenzeit's hold over him, and Zephie becomes his new master. He even gets a new outfit.
  • Worthy Opponent: Crocell considers General Zerglone one at first, being a nobleman who fights on the front lines with his troops similar to Zephie. After he meets him though, that illusion is dispelled and Crocell wants to roast him alive.
  • Younger Than They Look: Celestine is ten years old. The reason she looks older is because the Mare have a shorter lifespan than humans, so their bodies mature faster.
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