Rusty Hearts
Rusty Hearts was a third person Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game from Windysoft, published by Perfect World Entertainment in 2011.
Legend says that a ancient royal family maintaining its blood purity spawned the vampiric race. Early wariness by humans and vampires alike gave way to acceptance and the spread of half-breeds, but pureblood ruler Vlad saw a threat and declared war on humans and half-breeds alike. He was beaten back but not fully defeated. Now, Vlad has been tracked down to the city of Bramunez and its cursed Castle Curtis, which is where you come in...
Rusty Hearts was free to play (with microtransactions) on Steam. The game was kind of like a spectacle fighter mixed with a Roguelike and a MMORPG. You go through various maps, each time locked in until you have killed all enemies in the room. You get more skills as you go on, using mana to activate them in battle, each with a recharge time.
The servers shut down on September 2014, a mere two years after its release.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Some of the quests will give you items like leggings, armor, helmet, boots, and gloves. Played even straighter with quests that give you costume items which is different from the previously mentioned ones since they change the appearance of your character.
- Animesque: It's easy to overlook that this game is from South Korea.
- BFS: In addition to Angela's, many enemy creatures also wield enormous weapons.
- Blatant Lies: Lampshaded by Frantz.
"I'm surrounded by liars. Angela's not even a natural redhead."
- Bonus Stage: There's a chance that Margoras will take you to the other world after finishing a dungeon's boss. You can bribe Deathy, who also randomly appears, to ensure that you will be taken to it.
- Cel Shading
- Collection Sidequest: And even main quests, too, which would include collecting things like shards to dog tags.
- Comically Missing the Point: Some of the NPCs tend to display some cluelessness in their dialogs.
- Creepy Cool Crosses
- Deal with the Devil: Or, at least, a demonic sword.
- Deadpan Snarker: They all have their moments of snark, but it's usually Frantz.
- Dem Bones: Makes up the majority of the Mooks in almost every dungeon. They even have the red tougher variants. There are those that looks like large skulls with spider limbs (Bone Collector), too. And then there's Death and his more helpful junior.
- Everything's Better with Spinning: Some of Frantz's skills make him spin, with others making his weapon spin instead.
- Fish People: The Hakens.
- Fluffy the Terrible: That huge, dangerous-looking monster you see in the tutorial? Guess what its name is.
- Gender Flip: The Avatars. Frantz has Roselle Vergerius and her sister Leila. Angela has Edgar Grosvenor. Tude has Meilin Chen.
- Lampshade Hanging: The team can and will comment on the silliness of some of their missions.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Oh, so, so much. Often doubles as a Crowning Moment of Funny.
- Frantz: "Why do they have you cooking for the soldiers anyway? It's obvious you're terrible at it." Patricia: "There weren't enough NPCs..."
- Angela: "I'm only doing this because I need the experience points."
- And then are those dialogs when Angela ask Frantz if the map is correctly showing them the way.
- The Library of Babel: The Library dungeons seem to be very spacious.
- Twenty Bear Asses: Some of the NPCs will ask you to bring body parts or possessions of the things you kill.
- Meido: Some of the maps feature them. Except they're robots. And they want to kill you.
- Mood Dissonance: Surprisingly good writing can get your wrapped into the story and the rather well-developed characters, the twists and turns thereof... until you remember that you're wearing a shark costume and a cardboard box on your head that looks like a pig.
- Our Monsters Are Weird: Players will face all sorts of monsters that would include a vaguely robotic machine that look like a wine barrel (Boozatron) and a construct made from library shelves and books (Dewey Decimator).
- Necessary Drawback
- Rewarding Vandalism: More often than not, pulverizing those innocent boxes and crates will net you some nice goodies. Some quests would even require it (like Georg's anger management program).
- Subverted with some wine barrels that explode when you break them and crates which contain mole bugs.
- Ridiculously-Human Robots: Played straight, at least in Pamela's case. It's noted that her mentor fixed her and gave her free will. Most likely averted with the other maids, who look human enough but seem intent on beating you to death.
- The Wiki Rule: A small one at this point.
- Too Dumb to Live: If you get hit by Natasha's spike mat trap in PvP, you deserve every point of damage you take and then some.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential - Parodied in the quest "I'll Send them to Hell" where you will be sent to kill monsters who are supposedly married couples. Nadia was kidding.