Mabinogi (video game)

Mabinogi: Fantasy Life is a unique MMORPG developed by DevCat and released by Nexon. It's a 3-D game with Anime-style artwork, using the Pleione engine (unique to Mabinogi). The world and storyline are based in part on Celtic Mythology, specifically the Welsh Mabinogion and bits of Irish mythology; and is concerned primarily with the conflict between humans and "Fomors". Unlike many MMORPGs, there is plenty to do besides combat, although it is still an important part of the game. The extensive and robust crafting, music, and exploration systems make it possible to play Mabinogi Fantasy Life without engaging in any sort of combat, beyond the beginner quests, and still find plenty to do. However, this does make advancement somewhat slow and difficult by comparison.

There are no job classes as such (and only minimal differences between the three available races), or level-based building points. Instead, the game uses a number of non-exclusive skill paths to develop abilities and increase stats; divided into "Combat", "Magic", "Alchemy", and "Life" categories; the last consisting of the usual crafting skills, among others. The player can advance in any path, at any time; and can theoretically max out every single skill in the game. However, due to the time and effort required to level up skills; most players concentrate on skills that apply to more traditional character builds, such as Fighters, Magic Users, or Rangers, along with some secondary life skills to boost stats appropriate for their play style. Skill advancement is done through the use of "ability points", gained through aging (up to a certain point) and leveling up.

One of the most unusual aspects is the "Rebirth" mechanism, which enables the player to reset a character's age, stats and level while retaining skill development (and the stat boosts gained thereby). Because of this, Level Grinding is unimportant; and reaches a point of diminishing returns fairly quickly. Due to the ability point system, rebirth is an essential gameplay mechanic.

Unlike most MMORPGs, the combat system is fairly complex, requiring strategy and the ability to think quickly. Monsters use a wide range of AI styles and skills; requiring the player to react fairly quickly to changing combat situations, and develop good use of skills and counter-techniques. Autocombat is available, but minimally useful; and macros are generally ineffective (there is no in-game mechanism for creating them).

Mabinogi Fantasy Life does have an overarching story, which is released bit by bit in large updates called "generations", which themselves consist of smaller updates called "seasons".

A Prequel game Mabinogi: Heroes was released for the Asian market in December, 2009; and was released in North America in October 2010, under the title Vindictus. While set in the same world, this is a darker and bloodier version, using Valve's Source engine. Although it maintains some of the original's skill-based system and titles, gameplay is far more combat-oriented—it is being promoted as an "Action RPG"—and the game mechanics are simplified. The storyline takes place during the period of Mabinogi's history referred to in-game as the "Fomor Wars", which forms the backdrop for most of the original game's storyline quests.

A Sequel game, Mabinogi 2, is currently under development.

Tropes used in Mabinogi (video game) include:
  • Adaptation Distillation: G13 cuts away the Plot of Hamlet down to the important scenes. G14 does the same with Romeo and Juliet.
  • Alien Sky: Erinn has two moons; Ladeca, the large white one; and Eweca, a smaller pinkish one.
  • All Deserts Have Cacti: Averted. Most of the deserts in the game don't have very many.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: If you pay attention to the backstories of some minor NPCs, there are a few one-way crushes. Malcolm likes Nora, Trefor likes Dilys, Ranald likes Endelyon, Aeira likes Stewart, Sion likes Ibbie, Galvin likes Del, Del likes Lucas, Del AND Delen like Aodhan, Elain likes Leslie (who's married)...
  • An Economy Is You: Averted. There are a large number of useless but decorative items available in shops (such as hats and glasses); as well as a number of books which lack any in-game function aside from providing flavor text and background fluff. There are also restaurants and grocery stores which sell a wide range of both cooking ingredients and prepared foods, and bars which sell booze. The shops are about as varied as you would expect for any average town of their size and technolgical level.
  • And Now for Someone Completely Different: "RP missions/dungeons" are a major quest type in this game, wherein you play as NPCs, who often have unique equipment setups and skill selections. Some NPCs are brutally efficient for what they're expected to tackle, but others require a bit more care from the player.
  • Annoying Arrows: The Dev team does not believe in this trope. If you get hit by an arrow, ninety percent or more of that damage is liable to be taken away from you as "wounds", which cannot heal by normal mechanisms. Did I mention that these arrows can knock you flat on your back at range? Any monster carrying a bow, that you can't take out in one combo, instantly gets elevated to Demonic Spider. Of course, newer skills such as Charge and Evasion can combat these, but they are either difficult to get for newer players or hard to execute in the heat of battle.
    • This trope still applies to those player characters with a low-ranked Ranged Attack skill. You have to dump a lot of Ability Points into Ranged if you want archery be feasible as your primary type of attack.
  • April Fools' Day: And Ferghus comes down to greet you, twirling and spinning around daintily like Nao does. It's one of the funniest things ever.
  • Arrows on Fire: But only if you're near a campfire.
  • Artificial Stupidity: The pets. Oh God, the pets.
    • Somewhat Subverted in that players can modify the pet AIs, and even create their own from scratch using an XML-based scripting language.
      • Not to mention the fact that you can log in as them yourself to deliver a fuzzy beatdown.
  • Ascended Extra: Tarlach and Mari were both given backstories and motivations to try to save Morrighan, and continued to be important up to present time though the player doesn't learn until after G1 that Mari was reborn as Nao. Ruairi was just a guy with a sword who might have wanted to save Morrighan mostly because he was infatuated with her. Later storylines show that he survived, became much less happy-go-lucky and turned evil.
  • A Taste of Power:
    • Arch-Wizard Mores from one of the G1 RP dungeons once the most powerful RP character, with Rank 1 bolt spells that the players, at the time of its initial release, were unobtainable. He also had the monster skill version of Chain Casting, allowing him 5 charges at once.
    • The second example comes in the G3 sub-story as a way to allow players to test drive Dark Knight abilities before making the final, irreversible decision to become one. It is a run of Barri Dungeon as Ruairi after the events of Tir Na Nog, during which he's much stronger and stocked to the gills with various potions.
    • In G12, the player plays as Morrighan, so that the player can have a chance to see how her Demi God Skills work.
    • Chapter 4 later has several RP missions as Shakespeare. While the first few are not so special because they detail his beginnings as a Milletian, he has more high-ranked skills in his palette with each subsequent mission until he has nearly every skill at Rank 1 by the time G16 rolls around.
  • Awesome but Impractical:
    • There are some weapons that have very low durability, and so they're practically useless. Especially true for the Ghost Sword, which breaks after one attack. This is Justified in a way, in that these one-shot weapons are typically required to complete certain quests.
    • The Demigod transformation starts out powerful and only increases from there, but it and its special attacks lose EXP every time you use them.
    • The item you receive for completing the G11 storyline can really help with the grind involved in many skills, but using it too much will lower its durability, which you can only repair with points you receive from leveling up.
    • You can also combine the two latter and fire off a powerful Spear of God, which is generally agreed as the most powerful attack in the game barring special, impractical set-ups. Although few people use the Spear of God, it is a generally accepted tactic for several of the solo bosses.
    • More of an "Alright but Impractical" is the Broad Stick. It's a weapon you can get for less than 100g (which is dirt cheap, by the way.), you can get it right away if you don't mind a walk, and it has a max damage over 40, more than double that of a comparable longsword. Downside? Its minimum damage is 1, meaning that the damage per hit is entirely random.
  • Back to Front: The Chapter 3 credits cutscene, beginning from The Stinger at the end of G12 and ending with the first G9 quest.
  • Badass Bookworm: The hundred Royal Alchemists per server. They can research upgrades for cylinders that permanently become available in the game's database for everyone.
      • Buchanan could be an unexpected one. He spends an unusual amount of time in the G11 storyline exploring the Shadow Realm or Dungeons, and always seems just fine doing so.
  • Bag of Sharing: One of the most complex examples of this trope. Each player has their own personal inventory, as well as a bank inventory (banks are available in every city, village, and camp). Players with paid subscriptions can share bank inventories between all the characters on their accounts; while players with free accounts cannot. However, pets have individual inventories and are available to all characters on the account; so can be used to share items between all characters on the account, even for free accounts. Currency is shared between all characters on an account via the bank system, regardless of account type. This is further complicated by certain items; some of which cannot be shared through pets, but can be shared via the bank for those with paid subscriptions, and some of which cannot be shared at all.
  • Battle Ballgown: The female version of the holy Moon Armor.
  • The Battle Didn't Count: Morgant tends to brush off in-game losses like nothing serious happened. The first time this happens he returns just one scene later to quickly dispatch the people who had just beaten him. The second time he implies I Let You Win and decides to let the local Eldritch Abomination have his fun with you instead.
  • Beef Gate: Averted on the fields; monsters usually stay off the main dirt path in any given junction area and generally don't try to chase players around unless you walk right up to them and stand there, and they tend to give up the chase quickly enough (though nearly every monster can outrun humans, so you'll usually get hit once or twice before you can get away). Dungeons tend to use this one in several variations of straight and/or Subverted. Giant and Elf Guards however, are absolutely straight examples: if you happen to be of the opposite race, or a human supporting the opposite race, and try to enter either of their capital city, they will crush you like a bug on a windshield.
    • Played straight while doing the trading mini game where random encounter bandits will try to block your path forcing you into a fight. You can try to avoid them however, your ability to do so might be limited by the map your currently in.
  • BFS: The two-handed sword, the claymore, the dragon sword, the cleaver, the great sword, and especially Vales great sword. Later generations added the Glory Sword and the Dragon Fang, which each take up as much space as a suit of armor.
  • Big Bad: In G1, Morrighan is this...only to be revealed as Cichol, the real Big Bad for most of the rest of the story, although Esras takes the lead in G2. In Chapter 2, it's Crumena and perhaps Irinid. In Chapter 3, Cichol is at it again, only to have other villains such as Tuan the Python Knight in G11 and Nuadha in G12 after Cichol is unceremoniously disposed of in G11. The Big Bad of Chapter 4, in a bit of a twist, actually is Morrighan, though she seems to be more of a Well-Intentioned Extremist than previous ones, as she only wants to stop Shakespeare from writing any more plays.
  • Big Bad Wannabe: Neamhain seems cursed with this. She's tried to be the Big Bad from G10 onward, only to be the Unwitting Pawn for Cichol in G10, and then Tuan the Python Knight in G11, and finally she's weakened during G12 by the Big Bad of that Generation.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Some of the dungeon names.
  • Blind Idiot Translation: Yes, Nexon, the boss of Peaca dungeon's normal version is a ghost that is close to being wealthy, AKA, "Demi Rich". Especially weird since it isn't the only Lich enemy in the game, but it is the only one to mistranslated in that way (It seems likely Arc Lich was supposed to be Arch Lich.) Another bit of fun is that Esras is referred to as a male about half the time through G2.
  • Boss Dissonance: Of both types. Usually if the dungeon feels too hard or too easy, the boss will be the opposite, but not always.
  • Boss Subtitles: This happens whenever you fight a dungeon boss.
  • Bow and Sword in Accord: You can have it this way through the use of the two weapon slot system.
  • Boxing Lessons for Superman: One way to raise your stats (and the only way that persists through rebirth) is to train skills, because almost all skills contribute one or more points to some stat or another. This leads to things like taking up weaving and tailoring to raise Dexterity for melee and ranged attacks, or wizards studying music theory and composing for extra Intelligence.
  • Breakable Weapons: All weapons have a certain amount of durability, which slowly decreases as they are used. Eventually, they'll break, and you'll have to repair them at one of the many blacksmiths. How much you'll have to pay to repair it depends on how expensive the weapon is. In fact, all equips have durability.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: Rua is extremely well-connected, enough that she can pick up rumours about the rebirth system that even Nao (the person who guides the player characters through the rebirth process) doesn't talk about.

Rua: Apparently it involves a card or something. I guess that's some kind of Milletian-talk?

    • Which can cause some problems when you forget to unequip your gathering weapons, and go into a dungeon...
  • Breast Plate: Averted, for the most part. The vast majority of the female wear, at least in the armor department, covers everything realistically. Doesn't stop a few from having a skirt, though.
    • Skirts are not limited to female armour. Several Roman-inspired styles also have skirts, such as the unisex Lorica Segmentata, and the male-only Endoria Lorica Hamata; as well as the Bone Marine armour.
    • There are a few examples where it's played straight and Subverted—straight in that the coverage is less effective than desirable for real-world armour; subverted in that both male and female specific armours have similar coverage, or lack thereof; and they typically provide magical protection. The most obvious example is the Bone Marine armour mentioned above, consisting of a very brief chest-armour top and a very short skirt for both males and females (the only difference is that the female top is contoured for breasts); and is magically enhanced.
  • Bribing Your Way to Victory: When it first came out in North America, the game was like this. You had to pay for character cards in order to rebirth your characters, which is a nearly essential part of the game, and you had to buy one of three extra services available in order to play through the storyline and possess a Spirit Weapon. However, this was changed with the Pioneers of Iria release. It is now possible to rebirth for free, with some time restrictions; and anyone can do the storyline quests and own Spirit Weapons.
    • Paid service does still provide a significant advantage over free service; mostly via access to Auction House selling, expanded storage, better experience point awards, and a small number of complimentary useful items.
    • Pets are also highly useful, though not necessary; and are also only available as a paid premium.
    • Many very useful items have been added to the premium shop, including resurrections (which used to be complimentary), and items to temporarily or permanently modify stats and abilities. Rare weapons are also available through the premium shop's gachapon, some of which are available in-game, others only through the gachapon.
  • Brutal Bonus Level: When entering Peaca Dungeon, the game warns you that it's "beyond difficult." It's not joking. Enemies often have complete immunity to some forms attack and can churn out fully-charged spells five times faster than players can. The difficulty levels keep increasing, too: the hardest form of the dungeon can take from five to seven hours to finish!
  • Buxom Is Better: Nao and Morrighan are the most obvious ones, but Juliet is gaining some fame among the players for this as well.
  • Call Back: G13 has a few similarities to G1, most notably Morrighan's periodic messages to the player. Therefore, it comes as a surprise that, unlike G1, Morrighan actually is the Big Bad this time.
  • Camera Abuse: The boss intro for Ciar Beginner has the camera quickly zoom in on the Small Golem, only to cause a crash and knock both the cameraman and the golem out. The player character walks up and stares at the camera with a bewildered expression before the game returns to normal and the proper boss fight begins.
  • Cassandra Truth: So you've saved the goddess and are proudly sporting the "who saved the Goddess" title. Good, because now 90% of the NPCs don't believe you...
  • The Chessmaster: Cichol is quite the manipulator.
  • Cosmetic Award: The new journal feature that lets people compare to others to show off. It's used partly to choose Royal Alchemists for the week.
  • Collection Sidequest: It is possible to obtain books in the game that ask you to collect a number of items. If you do this, you'll get a special item, usually an equip.
    • Many NPCs offer part-time jobs, most of which are effectively time-limited collection/production side-quests.
    • In addition, most monsters drop some sort of item (Fomor Scrolls in Uladh, assorted body parts like fur, hooves, and scales in Iria) that can be collected into stacks of 10 and turned in for a reward by purchasing a quest from an NPC.
  • Competence Zone: Given an in-game justification through the rebirth mechanic.
  • Continuing Is Painful: When you die, you're given a choice of where to revive. If you revive in town, the amount of experience deducted is much smaller than if you decide to revive right where you are.
    • Averted with Nao's Soulstones, a paid premium item, which can be used to revive and fully restore the character without penalty, via Nao's magical breasts' healing power. Come on, we all know that's what's really happening.
      • Also, with paid Premium Service you can revive in town without penalty.
  • Crap Saccharine World: The world of Erinn starts out presenting itself as an ideal, easy-to-live-in world. The image that the generation quests present, however? Not so much.
  • Crippling Overspecialization: The three warriors, Tarlach, Ruairi and Mari. Tarlach was a pure mage, Ruairi a swordsman and Mari an Archer, although she does have some melee capabilities, unlike Tarlach. The most painful point of this trope is that a pure mage in Mabinogi can be hard to play without wands or advanced spells, and Tarlach has neither of them, and the player who happens to be running the G1 quests must play as Tarlach up to three times. Whoever they happen to bring with them will get Ruairi or Mari depending on their position in the party lineup.
    • The skill system makes it possible to build player characters like this. Rarely done, and mostly used for secondary characters that specialize in some type of crafting skill.
  • Critical Hit: There's even a skill that increases the damage you deal from one... and the Will bonuses from that skill increase your chances of dealing one, too.
    • Unless you're talking Counter, the move where you stand still and counter an attack that hits you. Your critical chance goes up for the duration of the move.
  • Cutscene: As well as the story-related cutscenes, you also see a cutscene before fighting a dungeon boss. Also, you sometimes see a short scene after eating very well-made food.
  • Dangerously Genre Savvy: Cichol.
  • Darker and Edgier: To say that Vindictus is Darker and Edgier is like saying that the weather in Antarctica is a bit chilly.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Morrighan is a black-haired, black-winged Goddess of Vengeance and War who has Crows as servants, but she's actually pretty sweet.
    • Until G12, then she gets kinda scary; especially when she finally opens her eyes * shiver* .
      • Though some would find her eyes to be quite beautiful.
    • Cichol himself gets some sympathetic moments from time to time.
  • Dark World: Another World, and the appropriately named Shadow World.
  • Death Is Not Permanent: This is actually explained. All the player characters are actually from another world, and therefore cannot die in the world that the game takes place in.
  • Deconstruction: The concept of Milletians, player characters, is an excellently-done bit of Gameplay and Story Integration on just why the characters the player uses are different than NPC's.
  • Deflector Shields: The Natural and Elemental Shields protect the user and surrounding allies from incoming arrows/magic...although they only last a few seconds and render the user immobile.
  • Development Hell: Mabinogi Europe has been stuck at G12 since October 2010 and remains the only server to be that far back. The Nexon EU team has also been suspiciously unresponsive.
    • Now Nexon EU is completely shut down. At least that explains the inactivity...
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The final bosses of each chapter are supposedly powerful enough to destroy the world, and yet a party of three people can kill them.
    • G12's final boss is the King of the Gods of Erinn. You defeat him, albeit with the help of other gods and goddesses.
  • Does Not Like Men: Dilys, for some unknown reason. She doesn't treat male player's characters any differently, however.
    • Actually, G2 reveals she has a reason. A guy she was dating tried to slip her a potion to make her a brain-dead slave to his whims. Apparently, she's hated men ever since.
    • G11 reveals that Belita thinks this way too. Turns out both cases are caused by the same man.
  • Does Not Like Shoes: Morrighan and Neamhain both are barefoot, though in Morrighan's case this isn't easily noticeable for a while.
  • Doomed by Canon: You can't save Hamlet or Ophelia, you can't save Romeo or Juliet. Sadly, the second one is your fault entirely; You're the one entrusted to deliver the letter to Romeo, and you get attacked by the final boss of G14 and are beaten spectacularly.
  • Doppleganger Attack:
    • The boss of Shadow Cast City, the Doppleganger, summons a few clones after you hit it a few times, then turns invincible until you beat them all.
    • Japanese and Taiwanese players can pull this on enemies with the Shadow Bunshin skill.
  • Difficulty Spike: G3 in Chapter 1 and G11 in Chapter 3. G3 is reduced somewhat in that it doesn't really get hard until near the end, but G11 is pain and misery the whole way through. Even worse, you're forced solo for nearly all of G11, while in G3 you can almost always bring backup. G14 includes another difficulty spike for Chapter 4, bumping up the Mooks considerably.
    • Most of the harder G11 missions allow the player to bring one Royal Alchemist to help, which depending on his/her power and skill level can greatly alleviate the difficulty of these missions. Buchanan Inside the Castle and Location of Destiny, however, do NOT allow Royal Alchemist assistance; Buchanan Inside the Castle is particularly infamous because its difficulty certainly warrants Royal Alchemist assistance.
  • Dual-Wielding: The "Pioneers of Iria" release gave Humans and Giants the ability to dual-wield certain one-handed weapons based on their signature combat motif—bladed weapons for Humans, blunt weapons for Giants. Elves do not have the ability to dual-wield any weapon, as their signature combat motif is archery, but they shoot two arrows at a time.
  • The Dragon: Dark Lord/Morgant.
  • Dragon with an Agenda: Morgant implies himself to be one.
  • Dynamic Difficulty: Shadow Missions attempts this, but does so poorly, since they do so simply by doubling just about every enemy stat for every hundred Empty Levels you earn. It gets really bad at Advance levels, at which points players just won't have the strength necessary to combat their foes. The range for Advanced levels is level three hundred to level one thousand. Compare Basic and Intermediate, which range for one hundred and two hundred levels, respectively.
    • The cruelest example is in G14. Every Generation before that would not scale difficulty for RP missions (wherein you play as an NPC), as the NPC is clearly not getting any stronger even if you do. Unfortunately, G14 does scale difficulty while you're playing as Romeo, who isn't even very strong to begin with.
  • Earn Your Fun: Many skills require epic amounts of grinding to advance to useful levels, others require extensive and/or difficult quests, and a few require both. Advanced skills typically involve a Brutal Bonus Level as part of a collection or story quest. Spirit Weapons have to be fed large amounts of expensive or hard-to-obtain items to achieve useful stats. The best enchanted gear is typically found via extremely difficult dungeons, extensive Exploration grinding, or through the cash shop gachapons.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Glas Ghaibhleann.
    • Claimh Solais's transmuted form, too.
  • Elemental Crafting: A rare complete Aversion of this trope. All weapons, armours, and shields are constructed primarily of iron; with the exception of a very few wooden weapons (clubs, sticks, wooden swords), some magic wands (wood), and certain uncommon magic items (usually special-event or quest related, and often of limited lifespan). Effectiveness of weapons and armour is determined by the design and quality of crafting; not the materials. Most non-event/quest gear that's made out of special materials is Justified by being magically enhanced, or very fragile and limited lifespan.
  • Eleventh-Hour Superpower: The Paladin transformation in G2, and the Demigod transformation in G10, though you can use both after clearing their respective generations. The latter is particularly notable because the boss starts out with it and you must steal it from him.
  • Elves vs Giants: The interracial war plays a large part of the Chapter 2 story. Even players can get in on the action by enabling the Elf vs Giant Player Versus Player option, although that turns into camping fairly quickly. In G9, the war is finally resolved by...sketching the Artifact Of Doom the two sides were fighting over.
  • Emote Animation: In addition to emotes that change your facial expression, there are emotes for greeting, laughing, crying, and now even saluting or doing Napoleon Dynamite's dance!
  • Empathic Weapon: Every beginning player is given a special weapon like this, inhabited by a spirit. She's always named Eiry and she always looks the same. She leaves you after you hit level 26 and complete a certain quest. Once she's gone, however, you can give most weapons that have been used enough an "ego spirit." They make your weapon stronger (and make it glow), but they also are rather expensive to maintain, as they require FOOD. That is, random items that the weapon spirit "absorbs"; with different items granting different stat boosts. The most effective stat boosts come from jewels, obtained through the use of the Metallurgy skill.
  • Enemy Chatter: Some of the enemies, such as Imps and Kobold Bandits, will actually say things to you. There's even one dungeon boss, the Succubus, that you can actually have a pseudo-conversation with.
  • Estrogen Brigade Bait: The female playerbase really likes Hamlet.
  • Evil Is One Big Happy Family: The Fomors accept anyone who wants to expunge the human menace, even human renegades.
  • Excited Episode Title: "Conflict! An Unexpected Battle!" (The original Korean name for this level was simply "Encounter.")
  • Fake Difficulty: G11 seems to be an experiment by the developers to find the most annoying combination of Video Game Tropes. An early level is a combination of an Escort Mission and a Marathon Level. A later level combines Randomly Drops with a Timed Mission.
  • Fire, Ice, Lightning: The basic types of magic available to the player.
    • Somewhat unique in that Mabinogi lacks Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors. Instead, Ice is cheap and fast but weak, Fire is expensive and slow but powerful, and Lightning is somewhere in between and arcs between multiple foes.
      • Well, all monsters are given an element of Ice, Fire, Lightning or Physical, and, besides Physical, they'll take either double or 1.5x damage from the other two elements, but less from their element, sometimes negating all damage.
  • Fishing for Sole: Using the fishing skill can get you fish, clothes, and gargoyle swords. Some useful items can only be found via fishing.
  • Four Is Death: The pass to the Scary Library is bought for 4,444 gold.
  • Full-Contact Magic: Blaze.
  • Gainaxing: Subverted. While Nao's breasts do bounce a bit, they stay together and don't go off in opposite directions. None of the other characters have any bounce at all.
  • Game Breaking Bug: On March 15–17, for the 2011 Quiz Show update, there was a glitch that made it so the effects of your title stacked every time a new item was added to your inventory. Every time you picked up, say, a gem or dungeon key, and had a title that increases your Strength by 10, you would gain 10 Strength (temporarily until you logged off or changed channels) every time that item was picked up. Cue people running around for 2 days with a 999 or higher in at least 1 stat, if not all of them, running dungeons or missions they shouldn't be able to do yet.
    • A glitch involving new Mercenary scrolls to not dissapear upon use allows instant five Lion spams to help on shadow missions, making That one levels and That one bosses of Shadow missions like a piece of cake. Averted with the Elite type lions, where the glitch isn't present.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: Player Characters can't die because they aren't from the same world; NPC's can and will die if the Plot calls for it. However, during RP dungeons, NPC's can respawn from death the same way as PC's can. This could be because all RP dungeons are memories of the character you're playing as, so it could be that the actual events that occur while player is controlling the character are given a sort of reality overwrite after the fact. Or else it could just be an Anti Frustration Feature.
  • Gender Blender Name: Tracy, complete with Freudian Excuse.
  • Get on the Boat: Only really useful for the title that you get from riding the boat ten times, as every twelve hours in-game, you can warp from one continent to the other. Also, the Uladh seaport is in the middle of nowhere. If you get the title, though, you can get on the other boat, and discover some exclusive items fishing there.
  • Get Thee to a Nunnery: Spoken, but not word for word. G13 is an adaption of Hamlet, you know.
  • Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: So you're fighting dark skeletons in Verona, when an ordinary Panther suddenly attacks. Evidently, it seems to belong in the top percentage of Panther to boot.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: If you're having trouble believing that Morrighan is the Goddess of War and Vengeance, just find an image of her with her eyes open. * shudder*
    • Other than that, bears and other animals possessed by Fomors will also have glowing eyes.
  • Golem: Fomor or transmuted by alchemists to aid in battle.
  • God's Hands Are Tied: Subverted; the whole reason her hands are tied is because she did actively help humanity in previous struggles. Doesn't excuse all the other gods though.
    • Morrighan finally helps you directly during the G12 Final Boss.
  • Good Costume Switch: Kristell, an ex-Succubus, traded out her Leotard of Power for a full Nun's habit long ago.
  • Good Is Dumb: Overall, the Dark Knight transformation is probably just a little more effective than the Paladin transformation, but they're still similar to the point that for most players it's a matter of style.
    • Ruairi is just an above-average fighter with decent equips and decent skill levels when you control him. He's a Hopeless Boss Fight every time you meet him as a villain.
  • The Goomba: Raccoons and Foxes of all colors are the most prominant example, as well as some species of early spiders, rats and bats, though later Palette Swaps of the above three will be actual threats. The buck stops there though; even simple wolves are dangerous to newbies.
  • Grid Inventory
  • Grim Up North: Physis. Subverted in that the Giants there tend to be fairly relaxed and (assuming you aren't an elf) friendly.
  • Guide Dang It: There is no way anybody could defeat the G10 Final Boss without first consulting a walkthrough of some sort; the sheer amount of things you need to do to make it even vulnerable is mind-boggling. Beating The Grim Reaper in G13 also heavily relies on you learning how to dodge his attacks; taking them will cause a lot of damage.
  • Handicapped Badass: Morrighan might be one. Since she keeps her eyes shut whenever she's not fighting, it's unclear whether she's really blind or just doesn't want to scare people.
  • Health Damage Asymmetry: So very Averted. Most often battles are decided in Mabinogi in only a few blows, since both players (especially new players) and monsters can die in very few hit. Averted, however, with Shadow Monsters who tend to have High HP and deal low damage until you reach higher difficulty.
  • Heroic BSOD: Tarlach and Ruairi both went through one after they were tricked by Cichol into believing that Morrighan had betrayed humanity.
  • Heroic RROD: The Dark Knight Super Mode and the Windmill technique induce this... in the former's case, holding it after a certain amount of time causes the user's health to rapidly decrease, putting them into Deadly status (see below.) In the latter case, it takes off 10% of the user's HP with each use. Thankfully, Windmill can't kill you; there are fighting styles involving Windmill that focus on not getting hit even once by keeping the enemy down.
  • Heroic Willpower: When characters takes damage that would normally kill them, they have a chance based on their Will score to instead enter Deadly status (see above). Enemies can do this, too. In extreme cases, a character may make the Deadly save while in Deadly status, as many times as the rapidly decreasing probability allows.
  • Hitbox Dissonance: Most large enemies (especially giant spiders) have larger hitboxes than what they seem to have. This means both you and them can strike from further away, and can make it hard to gauge some strategies, especially Windmill, which seems to have a minimum range as well as a maximum range against such enemies.
    • Ancient enemies all seem to have the same hitboxes as regular versions of enemies, which is unfortunate, because they're generally larger than usual.
  • Hopeless Boss Fight: Every time you fight Ruairi.
    • Also, during G13 in Act 2 Scene 2, it is impossible to defeat the Grim Reaper, as it is immune to all damage.
  • Hypercompetent Sidekick: Priest Meven isn't incompetent at his job, but he's pretty easy going for a priest, contrasted with his more serious assistant, priestess Endelyon.
  • Improbable Age: Most people choose to start off as a 10-year-old, so that when they grow a year every (Real Life) Saturday, they get the most skill points, and also to allow themselves to get titles such as "<name>, who killed a golem/etc at 10 years old". One of the NPCs makes note of this, saying that sure it's impressive for a kid to kill a bear with their bare hands, but isn't it kinda mean to the bears?
    • On that note, Comgan is a Priest in the mining town of Bangor, trying to raise money to rebuild the old church (which got destroyed in a fire). He's 14 at best.
    • It's not mean to the bears because some bears have the title "who knocked out a person at [age] 10"
  • Impossibly Delicious Food: Eating perfect five-star food produced by perfectly completing the cooking skill minigame actually triggers one of several cutscenes depicting just how impossibly delicious the food you just ate was, one of which actually has your character pass out and be revived by Nao, who informs you that without her intervention you would be dead.
  • Inexplicable Treasure Chests: These are typically only found in dungeons. However, during certain events, they can drop from just about every animal and monster in the game.
  • In-Game Novel: Many of these. Most of which are simply flavour text relating to the game's main storyline. Some are stories by random adventurers, or musings by NPCs. A very few actually contain info on game mechanics.
  • Insurmountable Waist High Fence: And bushes. And tree stumps. And rocks.
  • Item Crafting: A large portion of the clothes, tools, armour, and weapons available in the game can be crafted, using the tailoring, handicrafting, and blacksmithing skills. You can do things like cooking food and making potions, as well as crafting completely useless items like paper cranes, "costumes", and furniture.
    • There are a number of items which are only available through crafting; such as the highest level armours. A high enough crafting skill can also create better quality versions of commonly available items.
  • It Makes Sense in Context: Chapter 4 is about A Goddess trying to kill Shakespeare. Yes, really.
  • It's Not You, It's Me: Midway through the G1 storyline, it's revealed that Tarlach actually does care about Kristell, but after seeing how far she was willing to go to prove her love for him, he feels he's not worthy to receive. Also there's the fact about him being a Druid, and unable to leave the area he's taken residence in.
  • Jiggle Physics: Applies only to Nao. No other characters exhibit any sort of bounce at all. Not even Rua.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: Averted—nearly all of the swords in this game are Western swords. There are only about two Eastern swords in the game, and while good, they're not overpowering.
  • Kick Them While They Are Down: The Assault Slash skill.
  • Kick the Dog: Triona is attacked by the brainwashed paladins.
  • Kid Hero: You will see a lot of these. They can probably still kick your ass.
  • The Law of Diminishing Defensive Effort: Painfully Averted: you either learn how to fight defensively in Mabinogi, or you die a lot. You choose.
    • Once you advance your skills enough, though, the focus shifts toward defeating enemies before they can notice you.
  • Lethal Chef: Aeira, the bookstore owner, tries to make a bag lunch for another NPC. The picture depicts some kind of oatmeal explosion, with Aeira cowering behind the counter.
  • Level Up Fill Up: Right after rebirth is an excellent time to visit a tough dungeon, since you'll probably get upwards of half a dozen level-ups before you even clear the first floor, with a health fill-up every time.
  • Light Is Not Good: Neamhain.
  • Locked Door: Many of the doors in the dungeons are locked, and require you to get the right key from the enemies in the dungeon in order to progress.
  • Luck-Based Mission: Keith's part time job requires you to deliver an item to another player. If they're AFK, decide to log off seconds after you get the job or are just a simple Jerkass, the job becomes impossible to complete.
    • And keep in mind, Keith's PTJ is the ONLY way to get Falias Fragments and you need 4 of said fragments to get to Falias
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: at the earlier stages in the game. While shields can soak upwards of 50 damage, that becomes a drop in the bucket when faced with later, more difficult dungeons.
  • Magic Music: Ranking the Musical Knowledge and Composing skills high enough gives the Magic Music ability, which allows characters to play music that can buff teammates, debuff mobs, and even mind-control single enemies. One of three ways to get the "who seduced a Succubus" title.
  • Magikarp Power: Spirit weapons start off weaker than a normal weapon of their kind, and only become the best choice after tens of millions of gold worth of equipment to power them up.
  • Master Computer: The elves of Filia keep their memories in the Memory Tower. This is good and bad for them, because it means their memories can be saved, but also erased at will, as was done to Atrata and Phaseus. The "Lost Elf" NPCs you can dig up in the desert are probably also victims of this, all done by the elven leader.
  • Money Spider: Including actual spiders, that drop piles of neatly-stacked coins as you blow their corpse through the wall. Hand waved in that apparently Glas Ghaibhleann ate gold, and so monsters started carrying the stuff around in case he got hungry and cranky.
  • Medium Awareness: The first time you meet Rua she says you and her and destined to meet, you then ask how did she know your name? She points at the name above your characters head and laughs.
    • Alissa, the one who operates the windmill in Tir Chonaill, does something similar when you first start a conversation with her.
    • Similarly, if you're using the "Who saved the goddess" title, some NPCs will express disbelief and make remarks about the increasing incidents of counterfeit titles.
  • Mighty Glacier: Bran, the final boss of G14, can't run and the majority of his attacks are at melee range. However, he can soak up a lot of abuse before he rolls over.
  • Mook Chivalry: Some enemies believe in this, some don't. And when they don't, you can be surprised how easily you can die when even two extra enemies you were previously slaughtering gang up on you.
  • Ms. Fanservice: That would be Nao. Anyone who so much as clicked "start" after making their character knows why.
  • Multiple Endings: Apparently G16 has them, while G15 had a variant. Depending on your choices, you could get one of two titles at the end of the G15 storyline, however this doesn't affect the actual ending
  • Nintendo Hard: The Generation 11 storyline pushes Difficulty Spike Up to Eleven compared to the dull-but-simple G10, and G9, in which you weren't forced to fight alone for the majority of battles.
  • No Export for You: Mostly averted, now that Nexon Europe has released a Mabinogi: Fantasy Life version of their own (December 2009), followed by the international release of Mabinogi: Heroes planned for late 2010. Still notable, however, for the unprecedented fervour with which Nexon America hunted down and blocked off VPNs and proxies that provided Europeans with access to their version. Other regions, such as Russian and the rest of central Asia, or Australia, still do not have a localization, and are IP blocked from playing the NA or EU versions. Nexon is very strict about blocking access to games outside of the localization region; although a few still manage to get around the blocks by using proxies.
  • Noob Cave: Alby, Par or Longa dungeons, specifically their normal versions, are the lowest level dungeon available for Humans, Giants and Elves, respectively. Don't take their bosses too lightly when you're first starting out, though.
  • Not Worth Killing: Most of the villains seem to believe that you fit this trope, but they go ahead and try to kill you anyways.
    • Averted in Generation 10 when Cichol shows up along with Possesed Cai in Longa Dungeon for seemingly no reason other than to kill you. Too bad for him Milletians can't die.
  • Numerical Hard: Higher-ranked Shadow Missions usually work this way; higher difficulty ranks just have enemies with higher stats, although on Basic rank important areas will appear as blips on the minimap.
  • Offhand Backhand: Your character does this to the Nightmare Humanoid in the Coil Awakening dungeon in the victory cinematic. Or at the least, this seems to be what the design team was going for; animation limitations make it so your character has to turn around and do a normal hit, but the trope is there in spirit.
  • Ominous Pipe Organ / One-Woman Wail: The background music of Peaca Dungeon. Appropriate, considering...
  • One-Winged Angel: All players can undergo this when they learn their race-specific transformations.
  • Only the Worthy May Pass: Every time a new area is opened up, there will be something called a seal stone blocking the way. To break the seal stone, you must meet the requirements. Breaking a seal stone only needs to be done once, and once it's done, the name of the person who broke it will stay there next to the stone.
    • The underground Ant Hell maze has a number of doors leading to higher-reward areas. These can only be opened by possessing certain titles, skills, or items; or by performing certain very specific actions based on rather vague clues.
  • Our Elves Are Better: How many fantasy settings do you know of with Desert Elves?
  • Patchwork Map: Iria at first appears to be this. On closer examination, the layout does make climatological sense, with forests and plains seperated from desert by huge mountain ranges creating rain shadows. The north is a frozen waste, with the a small, arid zone consisting of a volcanic island laden with hot springs similar to parts of Iceland. Although Karu Forest appears to be sandwiched between two deserts (Muyu and Nares Plateau), it's at the very southern tip of Iria beside the mouth of the Rutra river. This enables it to benefit from the rain shadow created by the mountains on other side, which channel moisture from the ocean into a narrow river valley.
  • Pet Monstrosity: The pets you can buy include venomous snakes and giant spiders.
  • Power Gives You Wings: The Paladin transformation at its max level, as well as the Demigod transformation.
  • Practical Taunt: The giants' Taunt skill attracts the aggro of all nearby monsters, taking the pressure off any teammates.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: Bandits will often try to tell the player that they won't be killed if they let the Bandits make off with their goods. Depending on how powerful the bandits you're facing are, this could be the only choice for a weaker character.
  • Purely Aesthetic Gender: Well it is... besides G3.
  • Race Lift: Bebhinn, who was a light-skinned, blue-eyed, pink-haired girl in Korea and a Native-American-like girl in North America. Also, Manus, who was a pale, long-haired blonde in Korea, but a short-haired, dark skinned man in North America.
  • Rainbow Pimp Gear: Averted. For the most part, all gear of the same class (light, medium, and heavy) has the same stats and upgrades (aside from durability); and gear obtained from NPC shops changes colour every in-game day. There are also dyes available from the cash shop that will let you change the colours. So, generally speaking, you can usually find some sort of attractive outfit combination that will be no weaker than any other in its class. Or you can just equip a cloak, which obscures your character if you end up making them look hideous.
  • Razor Wind: The Area of Effect skill Windmill, when sufficiently ranked, gains increased attack range, increasing initially 1.2 times the original attack range and 1.5 times when the skill maxes out. At that skill level, you're pretty much slicing enemies with air.
    • Not to mention said skill ignores an enemies' protection rate and making it easier to get critical hits, making it really like a razor.
  • Really Seven Hundred Years Old: The "rebirth" mechanic (see below) allows players to reset their character's age back to anywhere from 10 to 17 every once in a while, so players will gradually become more and more this trope as they advance.
  • Repeatable Quest: The game allows the players to perform part time jobs with the game's vendors, and allows them one in-game day to complete them. This is a useful means of accruing monetary wealth, especially for characters who are primarily crafters.
  • Restart At Level One: Mabinogi allows a player to periodically undertake a "rebirth" which resets the character's level, age and stats and allows the character to rank skills faster. However, the rebirth is voluntary and the character retains all previously learned skills (and any stat bonus).
    • Subverted, in that the stats generally gained through leveling up ultimately pale in comparison to the stats gained from the skills. Go ahead and rebirth. It's completely free if your character is age 20+ . And be sure to rebirth at age 17, so you can do it after only 3 more weeks. It's instrumental for AP gathering.
  • Rightful King Returns: In Generation 16, with Princess Eirawen being the rightful queen. This is a given, as said Generation's plot structure is intended to take elements from Macbeth.
  • Run, Don't Walk: Played straight for most everyone, certain skills force you to walk, but otherwise there's no way to unless you hold in the shift key. Reversed with Morrighan, who cannot run during the short rp mission you play as her; she only moves in slow, purposeful strides, or by teleportation.
  • Screwed By The Creators: Nexon's ineptitude in maintaining their servers and databases, and habit of screwing the people who don't bribe their way to victory, are legendary among the fanbase.
    • Giants are often seen as subject to this trope, as they have far fewer appearance and equipment options than either Humans or Elves; particularly since the latter two have a large amount of interchangeable gear. This is particularly evident with special-event equips, many of which are only usable by Humans and Elves (the Yukatas from the G10 release's Tara Festival event being a particularly egregious case). Equips are sort-of justified, since Elves and Humans are roughly equivalent in size and build, while Giants are much larger; but the lack of character customization is not.
  • Sealed Good in a Can: Happens to Morrighan with unusual regularity.
  • Secret AI Moves: The enemy version of Life Drain is the most blatant: it has no charge time, you can't hurt an enemy who is currently using it, and it multi targets. Your party will have to use Evade quickly to escape, or this skill will cripple it and completely heal your enemy (Commander-type Shadow Enemies) to full health.
  • Shakespeare in Fiction: The latest generations are based around several Shakespearean plays such as Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet.
  • Shields Are Useless: Averted. Equipping a non-upgraded shield appears to only add 2 defense stat to your character; but other features make them more effective than that. Shields are expensive, but they can be extremely helpful while your character still has low defense and HP. And upgrading them makes them even more effective.
    • The G7 release included the Charge combat skill (known as Assault in non-NA localizations) which requires a shield for Humans and Elves to use (Giants don't need one, due to their size). It also included some substantial buffs to shield usefulness, and combined with Charge made "sword and shield" or "blunt and shield" as popular a fighting style as dual-wielding became in G4.
    • Shield-Bash: When using the Charge skill, the player rams the enemy from a distance (Higher the rank, the longer the distance is), while lessening the damage from arrows. Once the player reaches foe, they slam the shield at them and stun them for 2.5 seconds. Giants can use Charge without a shield though.
    • In spite of the game telling you they only have 2 defense points, shields in general give around 17 defense points and lower the chance of you taking a critical hit by 10%. They give even greater bonuses when you use the Defense skill with them. None of this is actually listed on the shield though so you'd never know this without extensive testing.
  • Smash Mook: Pets' suicidal AI will cause them to just keep attacking, even if the enemy is defending or in a counterattack stance. Somewhat subverted, as pets are not monsters.
    • Actually, many monsters have similar or the same A Is.
    • Also seen in the AIs of some of the NPCs you must help or protect in Shadow Missions, who constantly attack nearby enemies, drawing aggro to themselves and/or interrupting the player's combo. It becomes particularly annoying when keeping these NPCs alive is the focus of the mission.
  • Something Completely Different: The Chapter 4 storylines deal with adaptations of Shakespeare plays and depart from the gods-and-goddesses storylines Mabinogi was known for before. At least, that's what it looks like at first glance.
  • Springtime for Hitler: To rank the Refining skill, you have to fail the skill more times than succeed. Prepare to get royally screwed over by the random number generator after it cranks out success after success...
    • Failure of the Metallurgy skill produces Unknown Ores, which are worthless and useless...except that they're very useful for some Alchemy skills (which were released much later), and to some players these "failures" are more valuable than actual metal ores. Cue unbroken chain of successes.
  • Squishy Wizard: Tarlach is this, which makes his solo Rabbie Dungeon run a test of patience. Mores would be one too, if he weren't so damn powerful. For player characters, this is completely and totally averted.
  • Standard Status Effects: Strangely absent. There's poison, but that's about it.
    • Well, there is petrification, however the others may fall under a type of "Uncommon Status Effects" in that there's things like weakened, which your stats aren't as powerful as before, and deadly status, where you're alive with negative health but become a One-Hit Wonder.
  • The Stinger: The end of the G12 storyline reveals a new plotline and twist, but then the next chapter deals with Something Completely Different.
  • Stripperiffic: Elen, an NPC at Bangor, wears a tube top that exposes her belly. Rua's very revealing dress also qualifies.
  • Stupidity Is the Only Option: Any player quickly comes to realize that if there's more than on treasure chest in a room, there's about a 90% chance it's actually a mimic. Mimics are generally weak, but they tend to be irritating to fight. Unless you know Windmill, there's no way to just stab the treasure chest without opening it to be sure.
    • Sure you can. Unless your ping is 0 (good luck with that), you'll have just enough lag to click the box and load defense or counter. Elves can even get a time advantage from clicking on a box and running a short distance.
    • Giants can use Stomp to activate all mimics in range. This would be a very bad thing except that they don't know what hit them.
    • To be fair though, mimics are generally very weak and are only a threat if you're in deadly status
    • Canine pets are capable of detecting mimics, and will attack them if their AI is set to allow auto-attack.
      • Any pet can find them in auto-attack mode. Dogs can just do it without activating them.
  • Super Mode: Players can earn a race specific transformation skill. Human into Paladin or Dark Knight. Elves into Falcon. And Giants into Savage Beast. These forms give the player a large stat boost during the skill's duration... and make you look AWESOME!
  • Sword of Plot Advancement: The eponymous Sword of the Gods in G11.
    • Once acquired, the Brionac from then on is a permanent resident of the player's inventory. The weapon cannot be Dropped, Destroyed, Sold, or Traded.
    • In Generation 12, the sword is required in order to enter Falias. After that mission, that particular ability of the sword becomes locked, and the player must then complete a whole series of quests in order to regain this ability and get back to Falias for the final battle of G12.
    • In the final mission of G12, the boss has very high Protection that must be reduced in order to deal significant damage. Though only a single use of the Shadow Spirit skill is needed to make the boss vulnerable, repeated attacks with the Sword of Plot Advancement will reduce his Protection even further, possibly even to zero given enough attacks.
    • Empowering the sword with the Shock skill turns it into an Infinity+1 Sword. In this state the sword's damage is increased and several unique abilities are unlocked, including the single most powerful attack in the game with a recorded damage of over 12,000 that bypasses Defense, Protection, and even Mana Deflector. Rank 1 Shock raises the weapon's base damage to a colossal 145-239, which dwarfs even the most powerful maxed-out Spirit Weapons. Bear in mind that unlocking the sword's full power requires completion of That One Sidequest and a whopping 448 AP, and an additional 4 AP PER POINT to repair.
  • Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors: The basic melee skills form an intricate little net of weakness and advantage: The Smash skill wins over Defense, but Basic attacks beat Smash, and Defense blocks basic attacks but not Smash. The Counter Skill protects against Basic Attacks and Smash, but Windmill beats it, while Defend blocks Windmill. The problem, of course, is that Counter and Windmill look exactly the same between charging and execution, and so does Defend and Smash if the user chooses not to run. Of course, you could just use a ranged attack - only Defend with a Shield equipped will beat those.
  • Tactical Suicide Boss: The Arc Lich has 30,000 hitpoints and takes one damage from absolutely everything...except the Bomb Steeds he summons.
  • Taken for Granite: Happened to Morrighan in the backstory. She seems to have gotten better.
  • Sword and Sorcerer: Newer mages (and archers to a lesser extent) generally should seek out the aid of a meatier melee character to keep enemies away from them while they cast spells, since casting spells leaves you exposed and unable to move during the charge up while most physical skills can be readied while at least walking, if not running even.
  • Take Your Time: So Glas Ghaibhleann is being summoned, and he's going to destroy the whole world soon? If you rebirth at a certain point during the G1 storyline, you have to train your character back up to a certain level before one of the NPCs will give you the quest to continue.
    • Or you could just not bother for 50 in-game years, who cares. It's not like the NPCs are getting older or anything.
    • Inverted with part time jobs; if you run out of time, you've failed your task. It's better to report a partially-complete job (when possible) than not reporting at all.
    • Also inverted with Shadow Missions. Many of these also have deadlines, and missing the deadline results in a complete failure of the mission.
  • Thirsty Desert: A good 80% of the Connous region is covered in the cursed, inhospitable Longa Desert.
  • Total Party Kill: Adniel. If you ever have the bright idea to summon him in a room your party is confined to, be sure that at least one person has Nao Soulstones to revive on the spot, and Party Feathers to revive the whole party with.
  • Transformation Is a Free Action: Averted for both normal transformations and Demi God. You can't be harmed during the normal transformations, but it takes one or two crucial seconds to regain mobility afterward, and enemies can attack you during that period if they've aggroed you. This is a very good reason to disable transformation cinemas; they extend that vulnerable window another two or so seconds. The Demi God transformation blasts nearby enemies away, making you safe during the change while still averting this trope.
  • Unblockable Attack: Wings of Rage, which ignores all forms of defense and tracks the target, making it undodgeable and ublockable.
  • Unnecessary Combat Roll: The Evasion skill. When in use, the player can avoid being hit with arrows, bolt magic and alchemy depending on the success rate, which gets lower near the end of the skill's animation. Higher ranks of the skill raises the success rate, the number of rolls that can be executed before going into cooldown, and shortens the time to recover from rolling.
  • Ultimate Blacksmith: In Generation 2, Edern is the one to make the Paladin armour out of mythril, the Unobtainium du jour that of course you must retreive in a Fetch Quest... which is of course also a Timed Mission.
  • Useless Useful Spell: The magic music scrolls sometimes gives stats, but only 1~10 of str/dex/int which isn't that much.
  • Weak but Skilled: Assuming half-decent skill ranks, a low-level player can curb-stomp opponents that vastly outclass them in terms of raw power.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: In G11, you can cook food by going into a giant pot and beating walking ingredients to death.
  • What Is This Thing You Call Love?: In the backstory, Kristell thought that love was about dominating your partner through force, mostly because adventurers tried to do just that to her several times through her life. She eventually came to understand love properly though.
  • Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Total aversion: If Cichol doesn't try to immediately blast you on the spot, its because he has some use for you, or some giant monster about to disembowel you. Your continued survival is in no way attributed to the villain's unwillingness to do things himself, to say the least.
  • With This Herring: Partially averted. The starting armor is just plain clothing, which is effectively worthless (although, like all clothing, it can be upgraded a bit). However, the beginner's Empathic Weapon (always named Eiry, regardless of race and weapon type) is actually the most effective weapon available for new players, since it compensates for the new player's low stats (other weapons need higher stats to be more than minimally effective).
    • Oddly, this is played almost to the point of subversion when fighting with tools. Contrary to real-world expectations, fighting with non-upgraded tools, even knives and large hammers, is typically less effective than fighting with bare hands (the game informs you of this); despite the tools being functionally identical to many weapons.
  • Wizard Needs Food Badly: Your characters have a stamina meter, which decreases whenever you do something like fighting or gathering. However, there's a part of it that decreases from hunger. You replenish this by eating food. Your characters can't actually die from hunger, though.
    • All hunger does is slow down the restoration of usable stamina. Of course, transforming and leveling up restore any hunger you may have. In addition, the hunger meter portion can only decrease to about 50%. Food can also make your character fat if you eat nothing but meat and the like, although a retool to the system increased the benefits gained from stat-increasing food.
  • Xanatos Gambit: The only thing you manage to do through the course of the G1 storyline to actually hinder Cichol's plans is release Goddess Morrighan. Even if you kill his Eldritch Abomination, he simply reveals he was hoping that you would, since it essentially opens up an invasion corridor for him to use.
  • Vancian Magic: Alchemy crystals.
  • Vendor Trash: A rather nicely thought out example. Enemies across Uladh will drop "Fomor Scrolls" associated with the general race of the enemy killed; these scrolls are used by the Fomors to turn normally benign monsters feral. Selling these scrolls to NPC's themselves will get you no money, but you can purchase quests for chump change to collect 10 of them, at which point you complete the quest and turn the ten in for a nice profit. Enemies in Iria will instead drop body parts used to complete Exploration Quests. The reason for this is because the enemies in Iria are not Fomors or controlled by Fomors; they're simply naturally wild animals.
  • Villain Exit Stage Left: Reversed in G1: Cichol all but lets you go, and he only does that because The Cavalry was the Goddess of War and Vengeance Herself.
  • Villains Never Lie: Cichol spends the entire course of G1 trying to trick everyone that Morrighan had turned against Humanity. In G3, he tries to do it again. Whether to believe him or not is up to the player.
  • Virtual Paper Doll: Due to the wide selection of clothing items and the ability to use dyes for customization.
  • Wide Open Sandbox: Although an overarching story exists, Mabinogi is far less story-driven than most MMORPGs, and the majority of the game's content is available outside of the main storyline.
    • Iria is literally an entire continent for the player to explore and find stuff in, walking from Vales (the Giant's starting town) to Filia (the Elves' starting town) then to Port Qilia (Human settlement) can take nearly two hours, if not more.
  • Yandere: Kristell used to be a minor example, as she attempted to invoke defeat means love on Tarlach at least five times before she realized it wasn't working. More recently she's grown out of most of the negative aspects of Yandere, but she's still somewhat obsessive over Tarlach, though not as much.
  • Younger Than They Look: Mores looks like an old man at any point in the story, but he's actually only 36 as of his RP Math Dungeon. Juliet is only supposed to be 14 or so, but she's quite developed for her age.
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