Infinite Space

Infinite Space is a Sci-Fi RPG released in 2009 by Sega, made by Platinum Games (ex-Clover Studio) and prominent Dating Sim creator (and original Steel Battalion developer) Nude Maker in an attempt to diversify their output. Very successful in its original Japan, it has been slightly less praised in other countries, but still been lauded for its great characters and enormous scope. The second is especially deserving of mention: this is a massive game, particularly for the DS. There are at least a hundred different ships with impressively detailed 3D models, a hundred different crew members to recruit with separate personalities and portraits and a staggering number of different star systems to visit.

Its main flaws have been stated as it being a little repetitive, having a somewhat derivative story, and possessing a learning curve that will have even the random encounters blasting your ship to smithereens if you don’t know what you're doing.

The storyline follows the adventures of a young man named Yuri, a "launcher" named Nia, Yuri's sister Kira, and the (rather motley) crew he assembles after leaving his homeworld of Ropesk.

Has a character sheet. Feel free to contribute.

Tropes used in Infinite Space include:
  • 100% Completion: It will take a few runs to complete the in-game database, even with Save Scumming.
  • 2-D Space: Gameplay-wise, it's only One-D, but in cutscenes, battles are portrayed in Two-D.
  • Absent Aliens: Subverted: just that there ARE aliens, but they are the ones who create the universe.
  • Abusive Precursors: Sure, the Overlord gives us lots of technology in the exodus from Earth and left the void gates around for us to use, but that's only for us to complete our duty; after that, they will proceed to destroy the universe.
  • Adventure-Friendly World: Independent Zero-G Dogs are an integral part of the setting to the point where the lines between "mercenary" and "national army" often blur, and the Cosmic Trade Authority and the Space Pioneering Law have established a Small Magellanic Cloud in a constant state of near anarchy, where anyone with a few thousand credits and a lot of luck, skill and cojones can become a king. At least until the Lugovalians take over. The Large Magellanic Cloud is a lot more structured and less friendly to independent mercenaries, however; only the toughest and deadliest Dogs can operate freely there.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: Arguably, most of Lugovalos' commanding officers, given how much attention was paid to the Merril/Ursula relationship.
  • The Alcatraz: Skantzoura in the SMC, and the prison planets Lari and Belgirate in the LMC where Yuri and his crew are interned after escaping the SMC.
  • All There in the Manual: The history of mankind before they spread through the universe can be read on the Commander's Guide.
  • And I Must Scream: Desmond merged with the Dead Gate. Well, he does scream, but this trope still applies more or less.
  • Anti-Villain: Many people from the nations you fight against can count.
  • Anyone Can Die: Plot-related characters have chance to die somewhere in the story.
  • Arbitrary Headcount Limit: You're permitted to own up to nine ships, but you can only take 5 into any given fight.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: Used by Bogd to prove that Yuri and Kira are Artificial Humans.

"So that Epitaph belonged to your father? Tell me, what does your father look like? What memories do you have of him?"

  • Armor As Hit Points: Both played straight and averted. The Shield Module increases your Durability rating, but the Deflector Module enhances the armor rating.
  • Arranged Marriage: Between Desmond and Katida in the route where you can recruit the latter. No wonder she becomes very subdued...
  • Artificial Human: Yuri, Kira, Valantin, Taranis, Bogd.
  • Artificial Stupidity: The AI does not know how to fight melee battles. Not only does it often run away for no apparent reason (which Genre Savvy players will interrupt with marksmanship), but it doesn't watch command gauges, and its attack choices are essentially random if it's not retreating (despite the Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors of the system, if you haven't changed your tactic, and it picks a tactic weak to your choice, it's clearly not fighting smart).
  • Artistic Age: Both Type 1 and Type 2. Terzi is a good example, who is 33 by the time you meet him, but looks like an old man in his fifties.
  • As Long as It Sounds Foreign: In the Japanese version, almost all of the names are somewhat laughable and don't make sense at all. While many of the English version names are still pretty gratuitous, they are at least less gibberish-sounding.
  • Asskicking Equals Authority: The Space Pioneering Law grants the discoverer of a habitable planet dictatorial rights over the planet, if they can hold it. While it's apparently forbidden for national governments to invade feudal dominions (or at least, it would cause an international incident), there is no such rule against private citizens doing the same thing, so any Zero-G Dog who wants to set himself up as a warlord has to be tough as Grus or he won't last long. Panfilov and Cadmus both learn this the hard way.
  • Asteroid Miners: In addition to mentions in the backstory, Yuri occasionally encounters asteroids that can be mined for some quick cash.
  • Asteroid Thicket: All asteroids in this game are very dense, which makes hiding in them to avoid detection.
  • The Atoner: Galkin if you recruit him. Also invoked with the characters who join you after Escondido mission; they prefer to die with honor, but Yuri spares them and force them to see and learn their mistakes.
  • Awesome but Impractical: The Special-3 commands, at least in case of high-stream blaster and surface blast. Special attacks obviously cost a lot of the command gauge, but the aforementioned two will also cause the gauge to stop recharging for a certain amount of time after firing them. This applies for both enemies and players.
  • Ax Crazy: Katida if you don't manage to recruit her in Act 2. Teodoro is also reputed to be one, but he is actually a decent person outside the battlefield.
  • Badass Normal: Of the ultimate five captains in the universe (according to Valantin) one is a Tracker, two are Observers, one is the son of an observer who may have all the abilities of an observer, and one is a pirate. From the SMC.
    • Or depending on the route you take, the last one is a commander from LMC instead of a pirate.
  • Bare Your Midriff: Nia.
  • The Battlestar: Any ship with a Hangar and Catapult can use fighter craft as well as kick ass on its own, though most dedicated carriers are quite poorly armed.
  • Battle Thralls: The SMC nations' navies serve as Battle Thralls to the Lugovalian Empire. How they are treated depends on their commander; under Eremon, they're barely a step up from Slave Mooks.
  • Benevolent Boss: Yuri. Also part of the gameplay; choosing the "benevolent" options in the Dialogue Trees will almost always give pretty nice stat bonuses.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Kira. Don't ever think you can make her a Damsel in Distress or hurt her brother. Just look at Argun.
  • BFG/Wave Motion Gun: Plasma cannons, laser cannons on Kalymnos battleships, Corsair, Mayr, Evstafi's high-stream blaster, Krebs exalasers, both ZRs, Taurus, Elite Phage's Warp cannon.
  • Big Brother Instinct: Yuri to Kira, crosses into Brother-Sister Incest territory. Also, Teodoro to his little brother Adolfo.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Happens multiple times throughout the game.
  • Bigger Stick: Bigger ships, bigger guns, advanced modules, and better fighters are at least as important as character levels. It's a big part of how Lugovalos takes over the SMC.
  • Bishonen/Biseinen: A few of them, most notably Lord Roth.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The True Void Gate was destroyed, preventing the Overlords from wrecking the universe even further. Yuri also managed to revert Kira's existence. The bitter part? Most (hopefully not all) of the planets had been destroyed, and large number of people were annihilated. Although given his power, it is safe to assume he also manages to bring them back as well. Either way, you gotta wonder if Ideon-era Tomino is involved in writing the script.
    • May also qualify as Gainax Ending or Esoteric Happy Ending because there is no denouement after the last boss fight to explain the aftermath. All you get is a few still images that are suggestive of possibilities.
  • Black Box: Epitaphs. Apparently, if you get your hands on one, and figure out how it works, your reward is the power to alter the universe.[1]
  • Blinding Bangs: Alik. He lost this after he was able to cope with Franny's death, gaining Formation Foe lv 5 in the process. Also, Anchjo the cartoonist.
  • Boarding Party: Melee combat against fleets. Not allowed in boss battles or certain encounters.
  • Book Dumb: Torlo isn't THAT dumb, but Ian occasionally calls him out when he doesn't know something that is supposedly a common knowledge.
  • Book Ends: Dietrich died during the final battle with Lugovalos near the end of Act 2 after firing Krebs, much like how his brother Bastian died during the first battle near the end of Act 1.
  • Boring but Practical: In a battle where you can fire all of your weapons at once, and use a Wave Motion Gun, the most effective is... sending a bunch of fighters at the enemy. Not only can they destroy other fighters (which otherwise needs a anti-air gun that takes a valuable gun spot), they'll pin the enemy in place, allowing you to charge up the Command Gauge while they soften up the enemy (or destroy them outright, when you have enough hangers).
  • Bottle Fairy: Implied to be Nia, but she is never anything but sober and professional when on duty.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Zakhar. Whether he recovers or not depends on the route Yuri chose to participate before attacking Balik's base.
  • Break the Cutie: Katida, which ends very badly if you don't recruit her. Either way, her life gets pretty sucky once the Lugovalians came.
  • Break the Haughty: Elgava, prides itself for being the strongest nation in Small Magellanic Cloud, gets curbstomped by Lugovalos.
  • Bridge Bunnies: Kira, Tatiana and Franny fit this role in the story, even though during the gameplay they are assigned in other posts.
  • Brother-Sister Incest: There's a LOT implied between Yuri and Kira. Several NPCs comment on it, and a few refuse to believe that the two are related.
  • Bunny Ears Lawyer: Some characters qualify, but Lord Roth definitely takes the cake. His personality doesn't earn him much respect from fellow officers, but his skill is something else. He even manages to become one of the top 100 zero-G dogs in the universe.
  • But Thou Must!: A rather humorous (albeit a little disturbing) example happens somewhere during the Magellanic Stream chapter, when Cico asks Yuri's permission to spend some time with Kira and confess his love for her. The story won't proceed until you give up and let him have his way.
  • Casual Interstellar Travel: Exists, but is a relatively recent development (within the last thousand years). Prior to the opening of the first Void Gates, space travel was limited to ship speed, which takes lifetimes to cross galaxies.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: Both Act 1 and Act 2 start out in pretty upbeat mood and gradually get darker.
  • Character Blog: Yuri's blog can be found here.
  • Character Level: Your HP doesn't go up, but the skill you happen to be using does. For example, a level 1 commander may suck at cooking, science, repair, and be mediocre at command, but a level 5 commander will be a lot better at commanding, but still suck at everything else.
  • The Chessmaster: President Brian. Knowing Libertas' effort to hide the Lugovalos threat will eventually backfire, and he cannot do anything about it, he "uses" Yuri to move things along, indirectly helps him with his escape from Lari and plunges the Large Magellanic Cloud into war, with the winner will unify LMC against Lugovalos.
  • Chick Magnet: Lord Roth. Also Yuri, to Kira's chagrin.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Some characters, while not necessarily just disappear (like if they're in your crew), will basically disappear from the important story dialogue altogether, even if they play an important role before. For example, Semias.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Kira, again.
  • Colony Drop: Happens when Celina launches her mobile base to destroy the Spider Web. There's also a more depressing example later during the Irvest Sector war, when Kalymnos attempted to crash Monarho satellite to its planet Najbaro. This plan somewhat failed since the soldier that was assigned to your ship (Delis or Letero) managed to activate Stellalumo to destroy said satellite, but Nova Nacio still suffered roughly 500,000 casualties from that incident.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Although this doesn't apply to all crafts, it's usually easy to tell where the ships and fighters come from based on the craft's colors. Some characters also have same type of craft with different colors those represent them. To elaborate:
    • By the nations/manufacturers:
      • Elgava and Regeinland - Light gray and red, though the gray shade slightly differs from each other.
      • Kalymnos - Pale yellow.
      • Nova Nacio, Nacio, Lugovalos - Dark green, with the last one is more to yellow-green.
      • Escondido - Black and yellow.
      • Enemonzo and Orsino Foundation - Red.
      • Zenito and Libertas - White and light blue.
      • Adis - Light purple, almost white, and slightly prismatic.
    • By characters:
      • The Novgorod Pirates under Argun's territory has red-and-black colored crafts.
      • Kreios Pirates' ships have purplish color.
      • Spetses army uses purple Nova Nacio ships.
      • Cico's Rudianos is a red-and-black Zara-class cruiser. He later uses Nehalenia-class battleship with the same colors.
      • Ursula and Eremon both have Nehalenia-class battleships, blue and white respectively. The former also has blue Castilla-class ships to guard her battleship.
      • Roth's Mayr-class battleship has more red parts than the standard design.
      • Dietrich's black-and-green Spohr-class battleship.
      • Teodoro's Pola-class battleship has the purple stripes on it instead of the standard reddish-gray.
      • Gino's blue Zanetti-class battleship.
      • Miles and his blue-green Toutatis-class carrier.
      • If you don't recruit her, Katida has red Belenus-class battleship.
  • The Comically Serious: Nele, Luko.
  • Cooldown Hug: Kira gives one to Georgo when he goes out of control after he was separated from the Zenitorian network.
  • Cool Old Guy: Plenty of them, Gen being the most notable example.
  • Cool Starship: Well, duh.
  • Cosmic Retcon: The result of Overlord and Flux Space interventions. People and entire sectors of space can be written into (or out of) existence, and everyone except Observers and Trackers will remember everything as if it had been that way all along. The results are not always logically consistent, as when Yuri suddenly had a sister who he wanted to always be by his side, after he had gone into space.
  • Cult Colony: Adis nation.
  • Curb Stomp Battle: Upgrade your ships and take them to an easy area, then try not to do this. You will fail. Plot-wise, there are quite a few:
    • The hopeless melee battle against Valantin early in the game.
    • Lugovalian vanguard fleet curbstomp the whole Small Magellan Cloud.
    • The Phages nearly successfully did this to the entire universe.
  • Custom Uniform: Averted, although Roth and the Schneizer brothers play this trope straight to some extent. While their uniforms retain the basic design of the standard uniform (as worn by Nele, Baum, and Beyer), they have different designs for the shoulder part and have more attributes. Also, unlike the other Regeinland characters, Dietrich's uniform doesn't go down until his feet.
  • Cutscene Power to the Max/Gameplay and Story Segregation: The special attack of some battleships. While it's incredibly powerful story-wise, it is highly limited in power in terms of gameplay. For example, a single shot of high-stream blaster can damage a large number of ships in story, while it only has strength of 1200 in gameplay, making a standard barrage much more powerful later in the game. Its saving grace is its pretty much infinite range and ability to hit all targets.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Many characters have their moments, although Brava Soneto stands out the most. Franny also tries to be one, but she rarely succeeds.
  • Dead Person Impersonation: Dardanos, warden of a prison planet, impersonated a pirate leader.
  • Death From Above: How Cadmus is killed.
  • Decade Dissonance: Tech levels vary widely between galaxies and between nations within a single galaxy. A first-rate battleship from the Small Magellanic Cloud will likely be outclassed by a destroyer from the Large.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: How some of your crew members are obtained.
  • Deflector Shields: ADS shields. They don't do so good with solid-shot, however. Unfortunately, they just fit into the armor stat rather than ablating and dispersing damage.
  • Demoted to Extra: Quite a few of the characters who can join your crew play important roles for a single star system/chapter, after which they never appear again unless you're really intent on going through all possible "Talk to Friends" conversations when you enter a tavern.
  • Design-It-Yourself Equipment: Ship design in this game falls between full-on DIY and Socketed Equipment. Almost all the ships available to the player belong to a standard class, but internal hardware is (almost) completely customizable within the limitations of the ship. Weapons split the difference; some ships have all their weaponry hardwired in, some have modular weapon mounts, and some have a mix.
  • Difficulty Spike: Act 2/Lutsk Sector is infamous for this. To elaborate, you start this act with only one slot available in your fleet and a weak destroyer ship. On the other hand, the enemies consist two or three ships, which is still not too bad since you can escape from them. If you're unlucky, however, a cruiser might appear among them and makes the battle inescapable, guaranteeing a quick Game Over for you. Until you learn Fleet Leader Lv. 2 and obtain ship blueprints from this chapter, good luck traveling around the sector.
    • And another one after the Time Skip since enemies are much tougher in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
  • Dirty Old Woman: Pipra. A bartender even notes this during a job.
  • Distaff Counterpart: Nia to Han Solo, as described in the Nintendo Power preview.
  • Divided We Fall: As Yuri points out, this is why SMC nations fell into Lugovalos' hand so easily.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: A few of them. See Getting Crap Past the Radar below. Also, Pipra's 'hookah' and the way she wields it, which can be rather squicky.
  • Dragged Into Drag: Yuri and Ian are dressed as girls by Nia during the Gorodok tavern event. Ian is not pleased since he nearly gets raped because of it, even after he reveals that he is a guy to his captors.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: In Act 2, some characters (usually Kira) are worried that something is bothering Yuri when he begins to drink a lot.
  • Dub Name Change: Almost every named object.
  • Dyson Sphere: Which covers the Sun to empower the True Void Gate.
  • Earth-That-Was: Earth was supposedly abandoned because of Project MAYA. You visit Earth in the endgame.
  • Easily Forgiven: Valentin. Yuri's quick to trust the infamous pirate despite Valentin stealing Yuri's epitaph, stabbing him in the eye, and leaving him to die in The Flux.
    • Also Emperor Taranis. Yuri's able to give off a Big No at his death despite trying to assassinate him just one chapter earlier. And don't forget that Taranis' introduction has him genociding an entire peaceful planet just because they refused to fight.
      • One more for the road: Cico treats Yuri like an inferior for the first part of their relationship, and is actively trying to kill him in the second part. Despite his arrogant, violent behavior, they are friends once again after Yuri finally defeats him.
  • The Empire: Lugovalian Empire.
  • The End of the World as We Know It: After humans successfully stabilize the universe, the Overlord release the Phages to turn all matters into dark matters, building blocks to create new universe.
  • Engineer Exploited For Evil: Minas, also has a skill of the same name (minus the "reluctant" part, of course). Leo is a Reluctant Mad Engineer.
  • Estrogen Brigade Bait: A lot, especially the Schneizer brothers.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Most barkeepers, natch. Also, job slots with no PC in them are more than likely filled out with Faceless Mooks.
  • Exclusively Evil: Most gangs of pirates, including the Novgorod Pirates, the Bad-to-the-Bone Pirates, and the Jackals who roam the Large Magellanic Cloud. This is not an absolute rule, however; most of the best pirates (such as Valantin and Celina) are bona fide Zero-G Dogs who live by the code.
  • Expy: Eremon will probably remind you of both Schneizel and Clovis. Dietrich is arguably one for Norris.
  • Eye Scream: Valantin does this to Yuri. Partially Averted in that although it is given a big, dramatic cinematic presentation (designed to shock and horrify the player), the actual characters basically brush it off as nothing, and Yuri doesn't seem to be traumatized at all by it after just a few days. Justified in that all the damage is completely repaired and regrown by the application of a few eye drops and a few days rest. This is a universe where medical technology is such that losing an eye is of no greater consequence and is no bigger deal, than a hangnail.
  • Face Heel Turn: Ian, Katida if you didn't get her.
  • Faceless Mooks: The majority of your crew, those 200 or so peons (per ship) who run things when there's no PC to do so for them.
  • Fake Memories: Yuri and Kira's memories were planted by the Overlords.
  • Fallen Princess: Nia is a literal example. Katida may also count.
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture: While the nations don't always represent a particular country, the customs (and naming customs) are usually drawn from one particular culture.
    • Elgava is Russian.
    • Kalymnos is Greek.
    • Nacio and Nova Nacio are Spanish.
    • Libertas is Eagle Land, with English names and a lot of American-inspired "democratic imperialism". Type 2.
    • Regeinland is German.
    • Escondido is a Latin American Banana Republic In Space!
    • Lugovalos has inconsistent naming customs, but represents The Roman Empire.
  • Faster-Than-Light Travel: Yuri and Nia discussed this somewhere in the game.
  • The Federation: The LMC nations are part of a federation, which breaks down in Act 2 and has to be rebuilt by force of arms.
  • First Kiss/Now or Never Kiss/Last Kiss: Nia kissed Yuri just before they head out to distract Lugovalian fleet for the Regeinland, which then proceeds with Nia leaving the ship to try to kill Eremon.
  • Five-Man Band: The main characters.
  • Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon: Any Wave Motion Gun, in accordance with tradition. More generally, cutscenes never show ships firing to the rear; even broadside fire is rare.
  • Forced Tutorial: Averted. You still have to go through the tutorial battles, but you can choose to skip the explanations.
  • Frickin' Laser Beams: Lasers are the most common weapons. They do average damage, but are more accurate than missiles or railguns.
  • Game Breaking Bugs: Unfortunately, you can run into two of them if you don't know where you're going. In Kalymnos route, visiting Basilicus HQ after the battle at Monarho will cause the game to glitch in later events. And in Act 2 (at least in the Japanese version), going back through the Ancient Gate after the event where Dietrich stays back to hold off the enemy fleet results into this.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: Played brutally straight in the end of Act 1. Remember how in melee battle, Shoot is weak against Slash? Guess what Nia tries to use on Eremon when facing him.
    • Also you know how a lot of characters keep saying that the LMC is a lot tougher then the SMC? Well, in Act 2, you will get your ass kicked if you don't quickly upgrade your ships to LMC ships.
  • Gonk: Torlo, before Time Skip. Although it seems that at least one third of the characters fall into this trope.
  • Good-Looking Privates: Dietrich, Pappas, Nele, to name a few... Lampshaded in Sombra's character recruitment.
  • Gratuitous Foreign Language: Half the places you visit have a Russian name. The rest are Greek, Spanish, German...
  • Great Escape: What happens at the beginning of Act 2.
  • Grey and Gray Morality: Particularly exemplified with Kalymnos-Nova Nacio conflict.
  • Guest Star Party Member: Several times throughout the game, in form of temporary crew members and ships in your fleet.
  • Guide Dang It: Anything Katida related. Lots of crew members too. Also, getting some of the blueprints, most notably Evstafi. Going to certain places too early (e.g. middle areas in Hinwald before the ZR-2 is destroyed) or making wrong dialog choices (when trying to escape the Flux) will result in a Nonstandard Game Over.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Happens a lot in the game. Most notably, Kira hacking into the Overlord systems.
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: Pappas and Delis. Arguably, Yuri and Torlo as well.
  • Hey, You: A few characters don't bother to call others by name at all. In their first meeting, Yuri takes offense when Eremon addresses him as "boy". Later in the game, Valantin simply calls President Brian as "Mr. Bigwigs".
  • Hive Mind: The Zenito people.
  • Hostage Situation: Averted with Princess Glorinda early in Act 2. Whatever you choose, Yuri respects her strong conviction and leaves her be.
  • Hot Scientist: Nadja Musin, and arguably, Aminda Mistika.
  • Hyperspace Lanes: Space travel is restricted to "starlanes", which are apparently a naturally occurring phenomenon.
  • I Just Want to Be Free: Yuri's stated motivation for trying to escape Ropesk, fighting against The Empire, and eventually trying to take on the Overlords who are the equivalent of his own creator deities. He's really dead-set on ensuring freedom to travel the stars.
  • Impossibly Cool Clothes: And how. Especially Yuri's outfit in Act 2.
  • Infinity+1 Sword: It's possible to unlock and buy Valantin's Corsair, which has more than enough space to have a full hanger, yet enough for other modules, along of course with having the firepower of a battleship.
  • ISO Standard Human Spaceship : The Freedom and Nebula-class battleships fit this trope.
  • Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Yuri takes this to the point of Cold-Blooded Torture, even severing prisoners' arms to get them to talk.
  • Just in Time: Valantin is fond of this trope. He even lampshades it on the last time he performs his Big Damn Hero moment, telling Yuri he should probably start to view him as his guardian angel.
  • Kill Them All: What happens near the very end of the game.
  • Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Mass-driver and rocket attacks bypass a ship's Deflector Shield, for Massive Damage.
  • Laser Blade: Plasmic Blades. Also laser knife, although this is only mentioned by Ian once.
  • Latex Space Suit: The suits given to Yuri and Kira by Nia. When Kira puts her's on, she surprised at how formfitting it is, while the game shows you a shot of her from behind to illustrate this, though her behind is quickly covered by a textbox. Press start, and the textbox disappears.
  • The Laws and Customs of War: A code of honor has developed among zero-g dogs, establishing planets and void gates as Truce Zones to prevent civilian casualties, and dealing with planetary colonization rights.
  • Lazy Backup: Most of your party members can fit somewhere in your ship's personnel roster, but it's unclear if they have any effect once you've run out of jobs. You can (eventually) field up to five ships and no more despite the presence of multiple captains/pilots within your crew. It's usually a good idea to sell off any extra ships because of this.
  • Level Grinding: You will do this to get money and fame.
  • Like Brother and Sister: Franny and Alik.
  • Living Ship: The Phages.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters
  • Locked Out of the Loop: Both SMC and LMC governments try their best to keep people from finding out about Lugovalos, which leads people who know about it being imprisoned to shut them up.
    • Also applies to Yuri. He meets at least half a dozen characters in the first act of the game who could have explained most of the game's plot to him, possibly including his own special origins, but they never do.
  • Lost Forever: There are branches in this game, so you will lost things in the branch you didn't choose. Also applies to crewmates, but there are some that can only be recruited in a limited amount of time too.
  • Love Makes You Crazy: Miles Merril tried to capture Ursula's heart by assaulting a system. When Yuri use Desmond Gate to wreck his fleet, he choose to try to capture Yuri instead of escaping, since he thinks Ursula will not accept him otherwise. He dies.
  • Love Makes You Evil: Probably what happens to Eremon, since Nia is of higher status than him... then he betrayed her.
  • Luck-Based Mission: To some extent, the boss battle against Ochoa. Since his ship is invisible, you can only rely on fighters and multi-hit weapons, and even then, it's still possible to fail the mission.
  • Ludicrous Gibs: Surprisingly well (and cleverly) rendered for a DS game, the Phages' hulls explode in a shower of gore, revealing a burning carcass inside.
  • Male Gaze: Lampshaded when Nia and Celina infiltrated Skantzoura, the warden takes his time to... look closely at them. Nia delivers this line as a result:

Nia: (Hey, my face is up here, buddy!)

  • Mega Corp: Orsino Foundation is described as one. Considering it has its own planet and army, it's not too much of a stretch.
  • Mind Control Eyes: Kira has these eyes on two occasions: when talking to Yuri after Balik's base raid and right before she kills Argun. They're pretty unsettling.
  • More Dakka: The Barrage attack fires each ready-to-shoot weapon three times. Depending on your equipment loadout, this can be Beam Spam, Bullet Hell, Macross Missile Massacre or a mix of all three. And, if you're lucky (and have one equipped), a shot or three from a Wave Motion Gun. But... the Dodge command can slip past all that firepower.
  • The Mothership: Emperor Taranis' ship Seonaidh which also serves as Lugovalos' mobile capital.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Nia, again.
  • Mummies At the Dinner Table: In Act 2, if you don't have Katida with you, she will order the fleet to focus fire on Roth's ship, killing Nele, which turns Roth into this before he fires high-stream blaster, destroying the ship.
    • Well, it seems more like he knows that she's dead, but he has to say it and get it off his chest before his Heroic Sacrifice.
  • My Sister Is Off-Limits: Yuri to Cico, during the aforementioned But Thou Must! entry above.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: The top-rank pirates, most notably Celina's nickname, Merciless Night Queen. Also, Teodoro's title, the Bloody Prince.
  • Neck Lift: Done by the brainwashed Zakhar toward Tatiana in Act 2.
  • Never Give the Captain a Straight Answer
  • New Game+: Your level and money will be carried over.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Players who believe in mercy will have a very unpleasant surprise waiting for them if they spare a certain villain...
    • Also, the imprisonment of everyone who knows about SMC's subjugation by Lugovalos and tries to warn LMC about it, as described by Gen.
  • Nonstandard Game Over: A few. The earliest example is when your fleet was trapped in the Flux Sector: picking the wrong choices will cause the characters disappear into nothingness.
  • Noodle People: The characters are drawn in this style in some event CGs.
  • No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: With a few exceptions, most of the superweapons you encounter during the game are never duplicated. Some, like the ZR 2, do include plans, but nevertheless nobody tries to build more of them.
  • Not So Different: At one point, Yuri admits that he's doing exactly the same thing to the Large Magellanic Cloud as Lugovalos did in the Small: uniting it by force of arms.
  • The Obi-Wan: Gen, Nia.
  • Oh Crap: Everyone who learns of the true numbers of Lugovalian vanguard fleet: around 100,000. It Gets Worse when they learn the true number of the whole fleet: at least 1 million.
  • The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: Appears quite a bit in early game, then disappears for a long time... they're the Overlords.
  • Optional Party Member: Everyone in the Guild part of the spaceport, and a Bartender (who is actually a better mechanic than Chef). Arguably, 50% or more are optional party members.
  • Order Versus Chaos: The war against Lugovalos is partly fought because, while Lugovalos is not evil and has many good points, one of the first things to go under their rule is freedom of navigation and the right to live as an independent Zero-G Dog. Yuri and the Large Magellanic Cloud nations are fighting to protect that way of life, as well as the independence of their nations, and in Yuri's case, personal revenge.
  • Pardon My Klingon: "Grus" is used as a catchall swearword, meaning everything from "shit" to "hell", although the characters still use "damn" and "ass" liberally.
  • Precision F-Strike:
    • Before her death, Katida used the word "hell" instead of "Grus".

Katida: Damn! Damn it all to hell!

    • After a melee battle against Lugovalos officers, Dietrich uses the word "Grus" while commenting on their strength.[2] This is the only time he actually says anything close to a swearword.

Dietrich: I mean, good Grus, those are some amazing specimens!

  • Parental Abandonment: Most of the "young" characters' parents are already dead, and the rest are never mentioned. Turns out in Yuri and Kira's case, they have no parents in the first place...
  • People Jars: Rubriko's spare bodies.
  • Perfect Pacifist People: One such civilization is met by the flagship bearing Galactic Conqueror Emperor Taranis of Lugovalos, greeting his declaration of impending conquest amicably yet professing that they have no desire for war. He genocides them on the spot. The Lugovalos are usually happy to absorb most conquered civilizations into their own without excessive tyranny, but Taranis sees no worth whatsoever in people who forgot how to defend themselves.
  • Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Nia and Eremon apparently used to have this dynamic. Until it happened...
  • Point of No Return: Plenty of them. Unless you don't care about completion that much, it's best to get everything available in each chapter as soon as possible.
  • Portal Network: Void gates.
  • Princess for a Day: Nia disguises herself as an important figure from Lanco Warship Manufacturing at one point. And turns out she WAS a princess...
  • The Promise: Yuri regarding Katida's insistence to travel with him. And boy does it affect her so much later...
  • Put on a Bus: A few characters receive this before the end of Act 1.
  • Rage Against the Heavens: Taranis and Valantin's ultimate plan. Probably successfully carried out in the end.
  • Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Your crew, lampshaded several times throughout the game.
  • Ramming Always Works: Subverted. Novikov tried to ram his ship into Lugovalian flagship as Elgavan fleet is being destroyed. Eremon only felt a slight bump. Also, Eremon tried to ram your ship after losing the second fight, only to bank left at the last second, scraping your ship.
    • Played with when Emperor Taranis rammed the Dyson Sphere at the end of the game, from which his ship weapons could finally do some serious damage.
  • Random Encounters: For extra fun, the game allows you to set the encounter rate to "High".
  • Rape, Pillage and Burn: Novgorod Pirates loves to do this (on the first two, at least). Ditto for other pirate groups.
  • Reality Is Out to Lunch: The Flux.
  • Reality Warper:
    • All the observers, and possibly the trackers, but only in The Flux.
    • The Overlords, with unclear limitations.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Arguably, Ensign Delis.
  • The Republic: Regeinland, which is one of the more technologically advanced nation in LMC (only rivaled by Zenito and Nacio) and not in friendly terms with Libertas, the nation that is closest to The Federation trope in the game.
  • Ret-Gone: In general, anyone who wanders into The Flux (see Nonstandard Game Over above). Kira after she tried to hack into the Overlord's system. Yuri reverts this in the end.
  • Reverse Mole: Galkin, Zakhar.
  • The Rival: Cico seems to think he's this for Yuri. Yuri, for his part, never expresses any strong competitive feelings about anyone.
  • Robot Girl: Dr. Minas modified a broken HELP android into a combat droid with female appearance, 4000 degree Kelvin cutting blades for hands, and eye lasers.
    • But he didn't change the personality. Apparently, he needs a good reason for that one.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: The Visani brothers. Also Princess Glorinda.
  • Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up: Torlo is said to have been a bully when he was younger, and the first thing he does when you meet him is try to steal your Epitaph.
  • Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: In full effect here. The backwater colony that is Yuri's homeplanet and is only 40 years old? Over a billion people. Some planets have several TRILLION people on them. Fleets of the nations are disproportionately small (Elgava only has total of 50000 ships) for nations spanning the greater part of entire galaxies with these massive populations, and all ships have crew counts that are also really small.
    • Relative numbers also suffer from this. Lugovalos is shown having a total military force about 4 times greater than that of the LMC, but the SMC and LMC are puny, puny dwarf galaxies, and Lugovalos is supposed to control multiple galaxies. Even if Lugovalos only controlled half the Milky Way, they should easily have the resources to put together a battle fleet thousands of times larger than what the combined strength of both the LMC and SMC would have been able to produce.
    • It also makes little sense for the first human colony ship to arrive in the LMC to have been launched from Earth itself, an important plot point. One would not expect colonization of the LMC to begin until the Milky Way itself had already been substantially colonized, and the initial exploration of the LMC would much more likely have been initiated from somewhere else in the Milky Way.
    • The Solar System is about the same size as a mid-sized sector, many of which are stated to have more than one star system.
  • Screen Shake: Your ship's bridge will shake on the lower screen whenever your flagship takes a hit in combat.
  • Selective Condemnation: Literally billions of faceless crewmen and planet-bound civilians will die in this game, but sympathy is only ever given to characters with Nominal Importance.
  • Self-Imposed Challenge: The game has pretty good potential for various self-imposed challenges. For example, not using fighters at all.
  • Ship Tease: Bastian and Nia have two brief moments near the end of Act 1... and brutally sunk following their deaths. Also, between Yuri and Princess Glorinda.
  • Ship Sinking: Yuri/Nia at the end of Act 1.
  • Shirtless Scene: How Lord Roth first appears in the game.
  • Shoot Out the Lock: Celina does this when she and Nia are imprisoned in Skantzoura. Except replace "shoot" with "blast with nitro string".
  • Shout-Out: Look at the designs of the ships, and especially Corsair with it's High Stream Blaster and wet navy-esque outline, listen to pre-attack chatter, look at naval tactics in general, remember that most of the game takes place in Large Magellanic Cloud. Suddenly, you realize that entire game is one large shout out to Space Battleship Yamato.
  • Show Within a Show: Anchjo's comic and animated series, "Galactic Yuri". Unfortunately, we never get to see them.
  • Silicon-Based Life: Shows up in minor event that opens Nerissa's recruitment.
  • Skeleton Government: Demid Panfilov knows Yuri personally despite being the governor of a planet with over a billion people.
  • Slasher Smile: Teodoro's character portrait.
  • Sorry That I'm Dying: Said by Dietrich to Yuri after he fires off the exalaser cannon.
  • Space Fighter: Ships with a built-in catapult can equip hangars to launch fighters. A ship under attack by fighters cannot move, so a fleet must have anti-aircraft fire or its own fighter wings for defense.
  • Space Is an Ocean: Sea of Stars, anyone (fighters, however, are aircraft, to the point that point-defense weapons are referred to as anti-air guns)?
  • Space Is Noisy
  • Space Pirates
  • Spanner in the Works: Put it basically, the only reason the universe survived is because Kira sacrificed her existence to hack into Overlord system, which managed to gather some extremely important information regarding how to save the universe. Of course, the Overlords never expect this, even their Ret-Gone of Kira doesn't work as it should be, since Yuri can remember, after all.
  • Squishy Wizard: For a battleship, Absoluta-class has rather low durability compared to other LMC battleships such as Agrell-class, but if you set it as your flagship, it will increase the dodge rate and accuracy of your entire fleet. Also doubles as Glass Cannon depending on the setup.
  • Standard Sci-Fi Fleet: Most fleets are made up of destroyers, cruisers, and battleships with a few carriers here and there. A few nations (such as Regeinland) have more specialized ships, such as dedicated sensor and communications vessels or flying guns.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: Ursula and Merril. Merril simply doesn't have the status or fame to be allowed to court Ursula, so he asks for a command of his own so he can get a great victory and be allowed to marry her. It gets him killed.
  • Star-Killing: Bastian uses the exalaser cannon to blow up a star, triggering a supernova that annihilates both his ship and the enemy fleet. Ten years later, Dietrich pulls the same action.
  • Strange Minds Think Alike: During the "gorilla lady" event, Yuri, Torlo AND Ian have this line of thought as their reaction.

(She really is a gorilla lady!)

  • Stupid Sacrifice: Nia's attempt to kill Eremon was entirely unnecessry, as he was aboard a ship that was crippled and about to blow up in a star system that was about to be obliterated by a supernova. On top of that, she somehow failed, and Eremon survived where hundreds of thousands of others died. Well done, Princess.
  • Summon Bigger Fish:
    • When invading Spetses Sector, Yuri and Cico lure Valantin into a fight with the Spetses sector fleet. Valantin knows full well what's going on, but he admires Yuri's spunk and lets himself be lured.
    • Yuri lures Miles' fleet into where Desmond Gate will appear.
  • Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors: "Dodge" makes a mockery of the powerful "Barrage" and Special attacks, but takes double damage from the relatively wimpy "normal" attack. Also: Melee battles.
  • Tagalong Kid/Token Mini-Moe: The Garner Twins.
  • Take Your Time: Averted in at least two occasions, sort of. You have to travel through the shortest distance possible to avoid getting caught.
  • Tall, Dark and Handsome: The Schneizer brothers.
  • A Taste of Power: The tutorial battle has you playing as Valantin, captain of the most powerful vessel in the universe, the Corsair.
  • Techno Babble: Up the wazzo during combat and maneuvering. Minas often confuses non-scientist characters with this.
  • Teen Genius: Ian, Phyllis, Franny and Alik in Act 2.
  • Theme Music Power-Up: The only vocal song in the game plays when you face Eremon for the second time. Prepare for a burst of Heroic Resolve especially since he killed Nia!!!
  • Time Skip: A ten year one happens between Acts 1 and 2.
  • Tomboy: Nerissa.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Lots of characters did this in the Time Skip.
    • Lampshaded by Nikitas when he sees Yuri:

Nikitas: Wow, you really grew into some kind of badass, didn't you?

  • Trailers Always Lie/Trailers Always Spoil: The four animated trailers (including the one that is used as the opening in the game) spoiled plenty of the plot points, major or minor (such as Kira gets erased from existence and Yuri's crew storming pirates' base). However, some of them don't appear as how they happen in the game (eg. Celina destroys Kreios' base with her ship's laser accelerator, while in the game, she crashes her mobile base), with some characters take different roles (such as Balik being the leader of Kreios pirates and Valantin as the captain of the Elite Phage and is responsible for Kira's erasure).
  • Transhuman: The Zenito are only borderline human, since their technology links them into a Hive Mind.
  • Trial and Error Gameplay: The battle system.
  • Troperiffic: Make. It. STOP!!!
  • Try Not to Die: During the climatic battle against Lugovalos, Yuri asks Dietrich not to "take unnecessary risks" before the latter stays behind to stall the enemy fleet. Dietrich is unable to fulfill his request.
  • Tsundere: Tatiana to Torlo, although she stops acting in that way in Act 2 (they actually get married later in the game). Ian is a male example.
  • Universal Universe Time
  • Unwanted Harem: Yuri has one, apparently.
  • Unwinnable By Mistake: See Game Breaking Bug entry above. Also, it is possible for the battle against Miles' fleet not to occur at all if you don't follow the right travel pattern, which brings up the usual "Depart" screen in the final stop instead of the Desmond Gate's appearance.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Gino serves as this for his father Zanetti.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: Not as extreme as with other games since the only way to lose a ship permanently is to sell it. Still, when you are at that screen when that same ship was named, built, and customized by you, saw you through several chapters, and was even how Yuri was addressed during that time (Yuri, captain of the [insert name])... sometimes it is just easier to grind the extra hours to earn the money another way.
    • Character recruitments (or at least, the routes you take) can qualify as well, since some of them will prevent other characters from nasty fates.
  • "Wake-Up Call" Boss: The first boss Panvilov is this for some people.
  • Wall Slump: Nia at the end of Act 1.
  • Warrior Prince: Teodoro, Cico.
  • We Cannot Go on Without You: If your flagship is destroyed, it's a Game Over.
  • We Could Have Avoided All This: Yuri laments over the fact that SMC could have banded together to face Lugovalos after most of SMC has been subjugated. Possibly subverted since it would still happen anyway, albeit with slightly better outcome.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: Several characters appear in the story briefly only to be killed the next time they appear onscreen. Bastian is probably the most glaring example.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Taranis goes on conquering rampage to gather the forces to resist the Overlords, Bogd created the Adis religion to prevent humans from fulfilling its job or else it will result in the destruction of the universe.
  • Wham! Episode: Following Kira's erasure in Act 2, the story becomes much more depressing.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Yuri has this attitude toward LMC nations for their lack of action regarding Lugovalos.
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy: Completely subverted. All of the white (or gray) haired pretty boys (or men) in this game are decent, if not genuinely good people.
  • Worthy Opponent: Probably Cico and Yuri.
  • You All Meet in An Inn: A lot of crew members are picked up in spaceport pubs.
  • You Fail Physics Forever: There's a mineral that gives off an EMP when "in the presence of laser light." You would have to actually hit the mineral withe the laser, but the quest just has you firing a laser randomly into an asteroid field. And changing a weapons-grade laser blast into an omnidirectional magnetic field-with a rock, no less-is impossible.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: And green, and white...

Cico: Hey, you! Yeah, you with the white top!

  • Younger Than They Look: Possibly the Observers and Trackers. At least in Kira's case, she comes to existence soon after Yuri leaves his home planet.
  1. ↑ Provided you're an Observer, of course.
  2. ↑ To put it in terms of gameplay: this is a party of fifty common soldiers with a combat stat around 100. Assuming you're not in New Game+ and not into Level Grinding that much, the combat stat of your specially chosen security chiefs should be around 120 at this point.
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