Laxius Force

Random Hero and his Chick

Laxius Power/Laxius Force is a series of RPGs created by French programmer Indinera Falls, using the RPG Maker series of tools. The story follows young ace Random Pandragon, who has dreams of becoming a knight; his lover, Sarah Brandolino; their friends, Luciana Vincenti (or Luci) and Coryool Tallemuyr; and Team Pets Herasia (a white cat) and Guanidia (supposedly a winged chameleon). During their adventures, they would discover they are no ordinary mortals, but rare inheritants of the elusive "Laxius Power", and that the fate of the world falls squarely on their shoulders.

Gameplay is similar to the Dragon Quest series. While the graphics are not exactly dazzling, the games boast huge gameworlds with lots of secrets; they are quite possibly the largest games ever produced with RPG Maker. The first three titles (the "Laxius Power" games) are free, while the subsequent ones are available as shareware.

Seven titles have been released:

  • Laxius Power I: Random Story: Random travels from his hometown, Rillia, to the city of SankT Leona to take part in a knight tournament, and gets far more than he bargained for. Luckily, he dragged his friends along, as he needs all the help he can get.
  • Laxius Power II: Destinies: The city of SankT Leona rewards our hero with a chance to study with the best teachers. They go separate ways to pursue their destiny.
  • Laxius Power III: The Final Terror: Random and his friends are summoned to Metrolia, the biggest city in the world, for a celebration. Unknown to them, a dreadful presence is wending into the city, and our heroes are to face an evil greater than anything they can imagine.
  • Laxius Force I: Heroes Never Die: The traumatic experience at Metrolia has driven Random and Sarah to a reclusive existence. But their peaceful, secluded life is interrupted by news from the city of Adretana: an evil organisation simply known as "The Order" has lain siege to the city and threatens to take over the world.
  • Three Stars of Destiny: A rather clumsy Retcon that recounts how Random, Sarah and Luci got together in the first place.
  • Laxius Force II: The Queen of Adretana: Luci too receives the call, and meets the others at Adretana. They are to infiltrate the Order's fortress at Arvendel.
  • Laxius Force III: Conclusion of the second trilogy. Random is finally going to meet the Grand Commendanter. What will be the outcome? Will the Laxius Force or the Order win the war?

Author Indinera Falls no longer maintains a personal website, but the official forum of the Laxius series is active, and you can find downloads of the freeware Power games there. The shareware Force games are available for purchase here.

Tropes used in Laxius Force include:
  • A Boy and His X: A Boy and His Slime Winged Chameleon: Random and Guanidia. A Girl and Her Cat: Luci and Herasia.
  • Action Girl: Wendala, also a Dark Magical Girl.
  • Anything That Moves: Magdalena, the goddess of lust and the lover of evil god Sariis. She kidnaps Luci to be her sex toy. Female members can learn a madness-inducing spell called "Love Me" that draws from the power of Magdalena.
  • Arbitrary Headcount Limit: The RPG Maker limit: 4 in the active party.
  • Art Evolution: The early games, with art solely provided by Indinera Falls, are fairly crude. It gets better when the game goes commercial and Indinera Falls is able to hire more artists.
  • The Artful Dodger: Cindy Petite-Fleur.
  • Badass Grandpa: Louis in Laxius Force I.
  • Bag of Sharing: Taken to ridiculous extreme because of the limitation of RPG Maker: you can share items with party members who have been split off from the main team and are adventuring in another part of the world.
  • Battle Couple: Random and Sarah.
  • Behind the Black: Very common in dungeons.
  • Blind Idiot Translation: In the early episodes, it's too evident that Indinera didn't have a very good grasp of English back then - sometimes the results are hilarious, other times we get just semi-unintelligible dialogues.
  • Boss Rush: In The Hall of Madness, the Disc One Final Dungeon in Laxius Power III, you'll have to fight many bosses you've defeated in the past two games.
  • Broken Bridge: A literal example is found in Laxius Power I
  • Bubbly Clouds
  • Can't Drop the Hero: Very often you'd like to drop Random or Luci to level up other members. You can't.
  • Chest Monsters: Many varieties, always bad news.
  • Control Room Puzzle: Often requires team-splitting to complete. Some downright vicious ones must be solved in order to unlock secret areas.
  • Culture Clash: At the beginning of the saga, we see that some people in Rillia unjustly look down on Sarah as a "slut" due to the lack of a nudity taboo in her culture. Unfortunately such portrayal is not always consistent: sometimes Sarah (on top of being whiny) acts in ways that make you think they weren't totally wrong after all...
  • Cutscene Power to the Max: Luci is especially prone to this.
  • Darker and Edgier as the series goes on, but on the other hand, the later games are less blatantly sexual.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Wendala, although Guanidia is catching up in the Force games.
  • Death Is Dramatic: Although you can't really die in combat, Plotline Deaths will claim a few of your party members, and they die in a most tearjerking way possible.
  • Diabolus Ex Machina: At the end of laxius power 3 the Big Bad has been defeated, Metrolia is safe and everyone has a party, however the next day, a demon arrives and destroys metrolia, sadi demon is afterwards defeated but still leaves the game with a real Downer Ending.
  • Damsel in Distress: Sarah seems to attract kidnappers.
  • Doomed Hometown: In Laxius Force I, Sarah returns to her hometown Mt Zulle to find her parents murdered, and everyone lives in fear.
  • Dream Land: Alexandra can enter the Dream Land by reading certain books.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Used with Louis (and to a lesser extent, Marion) near the end of Laxius Force I, shortly after the death of another character, which while saddening, was at least given proper attention. The party gather near the gates of Adretena when suddenly, a gun man shows up out of nowhere and guns down both of these characters. It is particularly jarring in Louis's case since he just dies instantly and is never mentioned again. At least Marion got in some last words, and Random mentions he is sorry for her death, but no one seems to give a damn that Louis died. Granted, he was a bit of a Jerkass, but still.
  • Dumb Muscle: Coryool, who thinks his fists can solve any problem. On the plus side, his simple mind makes him impervious to evil magic.
  • Expy: Sarah was probably meant to be one of the character of the same name in Shining Force 2 (who is a green-haired elf as well) but, in fact, she's rather the incarnation of Indinera's fantasies about her.
  • Five-Man Band
  • Five-Bad Band: the Cenodemons from Laxius Power III.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: Baretta, who is sometimes a playable character, sometimes a purveyor of impossibly cool artifacts.
  • Genki Girl: Sarah.
  • "Glad to Be Alive" Sex: Random and Sarah, in Laxius Power I.
  • Global Airship: In Laxius Power III.
  • God in Human Form: Yveen, who is also a playable character. And during the game you have to fight the avatars of various evil gods.
  • Guide Dang It: Not if you're doing a straight run, but a must if you aim for 100% completion.
  • Heroes Prefer Swords
  • Hot Mom: Sandy.
  • Heel Face Turn: Zoo the demon will eventually fight for you.
  • Important Haircut: Coryool shaves his head and his beard after he becomes Body Master.
  • Involuntary Transformation: Brussian is an elven prince turned into a wolf by The Order.
  • Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Coryool does this in Laxius Force II.
  • Jerkass: Wendala graduates from a Deadpan Snarker to a full-blown jerk ass in the Force games.
  • Joke Character: Alessandra in Laxius Power III (not to be confused with Princess Alexandra in Laxius Force II): you get her towards the end of the game; she is too weak to squash a fly and has no magic. The only good thing is that she comes with a really hot character portrait.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters: From Laxius Power III onward, there are at least 15 playable characters per game, and the game always has you split your party at one point.
  • Loads and Loads of Races: Fairies, lamias (snake women), harpies, lizardmen, minotaurs, mermaids, undeads, dragons, elementals, sentient bees...
  • Meaningful Name: The Hero is called "Random" because, according to the Word of God, he was originally meant to be an everyday guy, who just happens to be in the right place at the right time. This is (unfortunately?) subverted in Laxius Power III and beyond (and especially in Three Stars of Destiny) where it is quite clear that Random is anything but an ordinary dude.
  • My Species Doth Protest Too Much: In any large dungeon, there is usually a lone monster (most often a vampire) who offers to help you.
  • Mysterious Past: Wendala. Who is she really? Why is she an undead yet looks so human? How many masters did she have? Also Coryool between the Power and the Force sagas: he seems to have been involved with the dark side in some way...
  • The Obi-Wan: Luci's mentor Zanbard. He hasn't died yet.
  • Old Save Bonus: If you don't import old saves from previous titles, be prepared to do a bit of Level Grinding. What's worse, in the Force series of games, you'll miss out on quests.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: Nash, who calls himself a Druk and regards regular dragons as weaklings.
  • Our Elves Are Better at providing Fan Service: Sarah belongs to a clan of elves who think clothing is unnatural, and in the first three games you can unlock nude scenes of her. In the Force games, however, the least she wears is a bikini.
  • Playing with Fire: Luci's spells are almost entirely fire-based.
  • Psycho Serum: The Dark Blood of the Order grants those who drink it superhuman powers, at the expense of their sanity.
  • Public Domain Character: Van Helsing in Laxius Power III.
  • Pyrrhic Victory: The end of Laxius Power III.
  • Really Gets Around: Wendala has been a "slave" to... wait for it... humans, zombies, vampires, dragons, minotaurs, and a slime.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: In Laxius Force II, King Julian, Princess Alexandra, and eventually, the Queen of Adretana.
  • Save Game Limits: The Laxius Force games have an interesting take on the trope. You can save anywhere, as often as you want, but if you did too many saves, the end-game credit will call you a coward.
  • Schizo-Tech
  • The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: For being two optional characters you can skip, Leanda and Wendala have a lot of specific dialogue and content if you get them - try to go back to old places and examine/talk everywhere to see their comments. Also, the limit of 999,999 G in your inventory, typical of the standard RPG Maker interface? Don't worry, you can recruit a friendly NPC who converts large sums of money into gems, so to store them and convert back to gold when necessary. Such care is doubly appreciated if you consider the sheer size of the games.
  • There Are No Tents
  • Took a Level in Badass: Luci in Laxius Force II, after her husband King Julian is murdered and she becomes queen.
  • Too Kinky to Torture: Wendala. Also, as an undead, what does she have to fear?
  • Torture Cellar: A very grisly Bonus Dungeon in Laxius Power III.
  • Tragic Villain: Thomas in Laxius Power II. You'll see him again much later, in Laxius Force I, and may redeem him with life or with death. Your call.
  • True Companions: Random, Sarah, Luci and Coryool.
  • UST: Nash and Sarah, an interspecies example.
  • Unwitting Pawn: The heroes have been, for example, lured away from the Palace of Adretana by a rampaging monster, so that the enemy can butcher the Royal Court.
  • Water Level: In Laxius Force II: no hand-wielded weapons, and no armor except a magical bikini.
  • Weird Trade Union: There are all sorts of Guilds in the gameworld, including an Undead Guild.
  • The Woman Wearing the Queenly Mask: The eponymous Queen of Adretana in Laxius Force II.
  • World of Cardboard Speech: Luci, when she realises she must let go of her sorrows and be a leader.
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