Summon Night

Summon Night is a series of SRPGs developed by Flight-Plan. It is their second such series after Black Matrix and is notably much Lighter and Softer along with being better known. The series also contains three out of the four[1] Flight-Plan games to get a North American release, although all three are action-RPG spin-offs rather than from the main series. The games apply some Dating Sim elements to them as well with multiple endings for virtually all the characters that join you whether you play as a boy or a girl. The series celebrated its 10th anniversary on January 6, 2010 and has a commemoration website. Unfortunately, the series is now effectively dead with the closing of its developer in August of 2010.

The Summon Night series consists of:

Main Series

  • Summon Night
  • Summon Night 2
  • Summon Night 3
  • Summon Night 4

Spin-Offs

  • Summon Night Craft Sword Monogatari (Summon Night: Swordcraft Story)
  • Summon Night Craft Sword Monogatari 2 (Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 2)
  • Summon Night Craft Sword Monogatari: Hajimari no Ishi
  • Summon Night Ex-These: Yoake no Tsubasa
  • Summon Night Twin Age: Seireitachi no Kyoumei (Koe) (Summon Night: Twin Age)
  • Summon Night X: Tears Crown
  • Summon Night Gran-These: Horobi no Tsurugi to Yakusoku no Kishi
Tropes used in Summon Night include:

The main series contains examples of

  • All There in the Manual: Starting in the second game, there's a huge in-game encyclopedia that unlocks entries as you progress through the game. It tells you more than you need to know about the setting. It's part World Building and part World Building Name Drop.
  • Ambiguous Gender: Coral is explicitly this, as a direct result of Schrödinger's Gun.
  • Anti-Grinding: Free battles grant less experience and money than story battles. Furthermore, Brave Clears impose a level ceiling meaning if you want to try for them, you can't level up too much.
  • Arbitrary Headcount Limit: You are limited to fielding eight units.
  • Back Stab: The Back Attack ability. There's also a Front Attack ability.
  • Bare-Fisted Monk: Morin, Kyle, Seilon and so many more.
  • Bonus Boss: The White Night Guardians from Summon Night EX-These can be found in the true final level of the Limitless Halls of Summon Night 4.
  • Bonus Dungeon: Limitless Halls.
  • Bruce Lee Clone: Seilon. Complete with Funny Bruce Lee Noises.
  • Button Mashing: The fishing minigame. Turbo controller highly recommended for the Summon Night 3 version.
  • Can't Drop the Hero: Played straight in story battles and is paired with We Cannot Go on Without You. Averted in non-plot battles.
  • Cap: Magic healing and damage is subject to this. In general, this number is four times the power of a summon's skill.
  • Chinese Girl: Mei-Mei and Xiao-Mei. They're both the same person.
  • Color Coded for Your Convenience: In Summon Night 3, there are four possible students to be your companion. Each of them is dressed in the color matching the summonite corresponding to their summoning affinity.
  • Combination Attack: Certain summon attacks require a specific set of characters within a certain range of the summoner.
    • There is also a non-summon combination attack in Summon Night 4.
  • Contractual Boss Immunity: Most named enemy characters in story battles have this. It's a bit toned down in Summon Night 4, where most of them only have immunity to charm and possession effects and are just highly resistant to everything else.
  • Critical Hit: Determined by the difference in TEC between attacker and defender. This difference also determines physical hit/evade rate. Certain status effects will also modify the likelihood of getting a critical hit.
  • Crossover: Sort of. Unlike many RPG series, all the games in the main series take place in the same verse, but at different times and different places. The second and third games feature an extra story with characters from the previous game meeting with the characters of the current game, all aged accordingly. The fourth game overdoses on this, featuring many characters from all three previous games. Some of them even get big roles. Perhaps a more straight case are the bonus bosses in the fourth game.
  • Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The Reckless Summoning ability. It increases the power of a summon skill (and raises the cap as well), but there's a chance to shatter the summonite, rendering you without that summon for the rest of the battle (you can always make a new one and re-equip it after battle). It's available as part of the protagonist's Deadly Upgrade/Super-Powered Evil Side in Summon Night 3, but is enemy exclusive in Summon Night 4.
  • Dating Sim: Elements of it are present, in particular the Relationship Values and the night conversations.
  • Dead Little Sister: Falier to Hainel, and dead little sister-in-law to Ardylia.
  • Down the Rabbit Hole: The protagonists of the first game. Interestingly, every game in the main series has at least one character from the Nameless World who has this happen to them. Summon Night 2 has Leonard, Summon Night 3 has Genji, and Summon Night 4 has Kentarou.
  • Early Installment Weirdness: The first Summon Night has four possible protagonists with similar stat growth to choose from, sort of averts Schrödinger's Player Character, its stat point system resembling that of the first Black Matrix game, and starts in a world outside Lyndbaum. Later games would have two protagonists with different stat growth to choose from, follow Schrödinger's Player Character, a stat point system similar yet distinct from the Black Matrix series, and stays in Lyndbaum.
  • Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Averted. Summon magics are aligned by their origin, except for those of the Nameless World. Nothing is weak to any particular origin, but all can be resisted either slightly or greatly. Creatures with a tie to a certain world have great resistance to summons of the same origin.
  • Enemy Summoner: Enemy summoners are finally capable of Western-style summoning in Summon Night 4.
  • Fantasy Gun Control: Lampshaded and justified in Summon Night 3. When Sonolar asks Mei-Mei if she has any guns for sale, she responds by saying that she has an agreement with the residents of the Forgotten Island to not carry them. This is repealed when the residents see that the imperial forces have guns.
  • Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Expected due the whole summoning from other worlds thing. We have medieval fantasy Steampunk Lyndbaum, Mecha-World Loreilal, Jidai Geki Silturn (with Oni and Youkai), angel and demon populated Supureth, Petting Zoo People Maetropa, and of course, the Nameless World.
  • Fill It With Flowers: In Swordcraft Story, Razzy wants to turn Wystern into a city of flowers if she wins the tournament and becomes one of the city's Craftlords.
  • Funetik Aksent: Mechanical soldiers swap hiragana and katakana. Falzen does this as well.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: Scarrel and Corel ignoring gender restrictions on equipment, Falzen's immunity to possession (and to a lesser extent, also being able to ignore gender restrictions on equipment), the Dragon Child's Voluntary Shapeshifting and Gian's Evil Eye ability.
    • Also, any character capable using fists or claws is capable of attacking unarmed. Everyone else is unable to make physical attacks nor use any wait stance.
  • Giant Mecha: Many of the high-end summons of Loreilal are this.
  • Gratuitous English: Each chapter has an English subtitle after the Japanese name.
  • Guest Star Party Member: Quite a few in story battles and a few side battles.
  • Guide Dang It: Optional party members, Brave Clear requisites, Engage Ritual combinations, karma meter, special names for summons...
  • Half-Human Hybrid: A significant plot point in Summon Night 4. Also, the protagonist of that game is one.
  • Happiness in Slavery: See the Happiness in Slavery entry down in the Swordcraft Story section. It is prevalent in all the Summon Night games and touched upon in the games.
  • Hime Cut: Misumi. Not surprising given that she is a Yamato Nadeshiko princess from Jidai Geki Expy Silturn.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: As a result of Happiness in Slavery. Mentioned quite a bit by stray summons.
  • Incredibly Lame Pun: Whether intentional or unintentional, the summoning stones are called summonite. Get it?
  • Japanese Pronouns: Gian's use of boku instead of his usual watashi as part of his Villainous Breakdown.
  • Karma Meter: Requisite for certain optional characters and endings.
  • Lady of War: Azlier. She comes from a military family and is a squad captain of an imperial naval force.
  • Leaked Experience: Experience received is stored in a shared pool. Thus it's easy to level up characters without them participating in battle much. The easiest way to do this is to simply rack up experience with your core group, enter a free battle with the characters you want to level up, retreat and level them up at the level up screen.
  • Lighter and Softer: If you look hard enough, it is possible to make an argument for the setting as a Crap Saccharine World. The Summon Night games are by far Flight-Plan's lightest and softest games. Note these games are also the only Flight-Plan developed games not to really feature religion.
  • Lethal Joke Summon: Denchi-Man in Summon Night 3, who as his name implies, is a battery. Sure, his animation is laughable and damage is pathetic. But he has a huge range and is the lowest cost paralysis inducing summon in the game. Then again, by the time you obtain this, you are most likely at the end of the game, where just about every enemy is immune to paralysis. It does makes subsequent playthroughs much easier as you can have Aldyria safely and easily lockdown most non-boss enemies early in the game.
  • Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Does a somewhat good attempt at averting it. Magic has 100% accuracy, great range, awesome control potential, not subject to height and facing, and more enemies have lower magic defense than physical defense. However, magic cannot generate a critical hit, is subject to a damage cap, can be resisted, and MP can rarely be replenished. Warriors, on the other hand, can get more attacks by tanking and using counterattack. And because they can continually deal good damage without worrying about MP, warriors are great for cleaning up any enemies that have been paralyzed by your casters. In the end, you'll definitely want to load up on casters, but warriors have their uses.
  • The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: Xiao-Mei's shop. Lampshaded by the Dragon Child.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters: Especially throughout the series. Although the second game in itself could fit this trope.
  • Low Level Advantage: Flight-Plan loves this in their turn based strategy games. To further the Antigrinding, "Brave Clear" requisites for story battles have a level cutoff.
    • Summon Night 4 introduced the Book of Rectification, which allows you to de-level your characters so you can re-spec them. So if you level grinded too much, you can still attempt a Brave Clear.
  • Luck Stat: Vague function and cannot be increased via level up. Most noticeably, it determines the proc rate of the Mana Shield wait stance.
  • Mascot: Most of the recurring instant ally summons fall into this.
  • Master of None: Lucian. There are ways to make him less mediocre, but they are rather roundabout and still fail make him stand out. At best, he is capable but is left in a position that doesn't mesh easily with everyone else.
  • May–December Romance: Ribiel towards Lucian hinted when she tends to him and stays only by him despite others also suffering from the Soul Rot Disease caused by the black snow. Maybe considered Shotacon and/or Puppy Love. Ribiel is certainly older than Lucian in terms of chronological age, but is seemingly younger in terms of mental age.
  • Mecha-Mooks: All the summons from Loreilal.
  • Meido: Pommunit. Cunnon is a robotic version.
  • Miko: Kaina.
  • Mini Game: Plenty of them in each game, with prizes changing each chapter. The Button Mashing fishing minigame is present in every entry.
  • The Minion Master: All of your characters who have the Unit Actualization ability are capable of this with the right Summonite.
  • Multiple Endings: There are only a few endings concerning the overall plot, but loads of character-specific epilogues.
  • Mythology Gag: Summon Night 4 does this for the Summon Night series what Final Fantasy IX did for the Final Fantasy series. Summon Night 4 has the added bonus of sharing the setting with the earlier games. Unlike Final Fantasy IX, Summon Night 4 did turn out to be the last game in the main series.
    • In the first game, Wizell forges a powerful magic sword for the protagonist. He does the same in Summon Night 3.
  • New Game+: Many differences occur on a second playthrough, revealing more about the plot. A few endings require a second playthrough. Also, Summon Night 2 and Summon Night 3 have a gaiden where you play as the characters from the directly previous game.
  • The Nicknamer: Marurur on account of being bad with names.
  • Nintendo Hard: As expected of Flight-Plan. Summon Night 3 is notable for being a bit blatant about this due to fan complaints about one of Flight-Plan's earlier games, Black/Matrix 2, being too easy.
  • Noblewoman's Laugh: Kelma.
  • Non-Elemental: Summons related to the Nameless World are null aligned. They are not subject to origin resistances, but are still affected by generic anti-magic abilities. It is far from being an Infinity+1 Element though. Most of these summons are indirect support abilities that bring forth an object onto the battlefield. The few summons capable of directly attacking are inefficient in terms of power to MP cost. Also, in Summon Night 4, none of the null summons can be upgraded.
  • One Size Fits All: Played straight. Most noticeable between the diminutive fairy Marurur and the human-sized petting zoo person Yaffa.
  • Optional Party Member: Most fall into Guide Dang It territory.
  • Ordinary High School Student: The protagonists of the first game.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: The Summon Night universe has so many different kinds of dragons that Seilon (himself a kind of dragon) gives an Info Dump about all of them.
  • Petting Zoo People: The inhabitants of Maetropa range from Unusual Ears to Beast Man. And there's also winged humanoids.
  • Purely Aesthetic Gender: Played almost straight in the first Summon Night. Except for Hayato, all the other protagonists have very similar stat growths. Averted in subsequent games, where the male and female protagonists have different stat and ability growths.
  • Rare Candy: Food for your summons.
  • Relationship Values: As a character-based game, this determines the character-based part of the endings.
  • Road Cone: Mostly averted. The gaiden crossovers allow the player to choose the protagonist of the previous game while the current game's protagonist might be loaded from a clear save file or not be mentioned directly. Summon Night 4 doesn't mention the previous protagonists. The only exception to this is the Summon Night 4 Drama CD, which features the male protagonist and the Ambiguous Gender Dragon Child.
  • Robo Speak: Absett's lines consist almost exclusively of four kanji idioms with an occasional English conjunction thrown in.
  • Robot Girl: The named Mechanical Dolls. The generic mechanical dolls appear to be robot maids as well.
  • Running Gag: Gomenasai wa...?
  • Schrödinger's Gun: Used when choosing a partner character. The games usually don't make it clear to you it's doing this. From the second game on, you also get to answer a more obvious question that determines whether the protagonist is a warrior or caster.
    • In Summon Night 3, this is also used to determine the which of the two sub-arcs you will follow. Naturally, it's not made obvious. After meeting the guardians for the first time, you are given the choice to speak with one of the four. Speaking with either Falzen or Ardylia will lead to the Hainel sub-arc and speaking to Yaffa or Kyuuma will lead to the Rikku sub-arc. The one you spoke to will be given a more sympathetic point of view within the chosen sub-arc.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Di-Erugo.
  • Squishy Wizard: Most summoners/casters are this. Most have surprisingly good magic defense and can tank magic attacks until the enemy runs out of MP.
  • Standard Status Effects: This as well as a separate category for...
  • Status Buff: ...possessions that grant possessed units buffs or de-buffs, which brings us to...
  • Status Buff Dispel: ...removing them via exorcism. Abilities generally remove either possessions and or Standard Status Effects, but not both.
  • Summon Magic: Seriously, it's in the title. All in-battle magic is based off this. As such, almost all are the Eastern variety, but a few can double as the Western variety. The latter requires a special ability though. It's also how the protagonist ends up in Lyndbaum in the first game.
  • Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors: Armor processing, introduced in Summon Night 4.
  • Theme Naming: The Mechanical Doll Sisters in Summon Night 4 are named after screws.
  • This Is a Drill: The drill weapon is one of the most powerful weapons in terms of attack power. There is also a drill summon.
  • Trapped in Another World: Particularly if you happen to hail from the Nameless World.
  • Unbreakable Equipment: Played straight. Though in Summon Night 4, there is a drill summon capable of breaking equipment.
  • Unobtainable Enemy Equipment: Summon Night 3 is just chock full of this.
  • Updated Rerelease: The first two games have been re-released on the NDS. Both have the party skill system introduced in the third game added into it.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: Mane-Mane Summon Night 3, and the Dragon Child in Summon Night 4.
  • We Cannot Go on Without You: Paired with Can't Drop the Hero in story battles. Averted in non-plot battles.
  • Wholesome Crossdresser: Scarrel.
  • Winged Humanoid: Aroelie, Ribiel, Crowley and many more.
  • Zettai Ryouiki: Aya. Many others as well.

The Swordcraft Story sub-series contains examples of

  • Accidental Pervert: Late in Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 2, the main character comes across a nude woman in a hot spring. She and her brother attack you for doing so.
  • Almighty Mom: Amariss.
  • Ambiguous Gender: Arno. The Japanese version implies it's female though.
  • Ambiguously Gay: Lynn, from the second game. Well, ambiguously lesbian.
    • More like ambiguously bisexual, since she still flirts with you if you play as a boy. However, in this series, boys are the gender counterparts instead of the other way around, so...
    • Also, Aera.
  • Amulet of Concentrated Awesome: The second game gives you a memento from your father which turns out to be the key to their Transformation Sequence, and thus a Transformation Trinket.
  • Awesome but Impractical: The final attack spells on summon beasts, for the most part. They look extremely flashy, have really cool names and can basically destroy any random encounter in any of the games when cast, but they take a ridiculously long time to charge (during which they are interruptible) and still deal rather underwhelming damage against bosses.
  • Back-to-Back Badasses: The player and Varil do this while Varil takes on two Deigleyan soldiers and the player takes on Craftlord Lubert.
  • Badass Teacher: V.E from Craft Sword Monogatari: Hajimari no Ishi so much. Especially when she saves the main character with an absolutely badass flying kick in one of the villains.
  • Bag of Holding: The prominent sheath thingy worn by the main character of the first game is able to hold weapons bigger than it.
  • Beard of Evil: Lubert. Lampshaded repeatedly.
  • Blood Knight: Loki and Rampage Rabbit from the second game.
  • Bonus Dungeon: Deeper labyrinth in the first game.
    • A lot more areas resembling the ones you traveled through the game in the second and third.
  • Borrowed Catchphrase: In the first game, Varil explains his presence in one scene by mentioning Sakuro told him about the situation and told him to not "underestimate the ability of a Craftlord to gather information", a play on Varil's regular claims about the Gold Guild's (headed by his father) ability to gather information when asked how he knows about events he wasn't involved in. The significance of this line is easily lost because Varil's use of the statement is restricted to walks at night, when most players spending this time with the girls.
  • Boss in Mook Clothing: Although not too difficult, these enemies are much more powerful than the normal enemies found in the area.
  • Breakable Weapons: While weapons are breakable, it takes a lot to make them break. In some games, the weapons repair after combat, but in others, you need to use your forge or use items to repair them.
    • In Swordcraft Story, breaking your opponent's weapon is the key to winning the one-on-one battles.
  • Captain Ersatz: GUNVALD is most definitely an original creation... The funny thing is that Banpresto was partially owned (now entirely owned) by Namco Bandai at the time of release.
  • Cast from Hit Points: In the third game, the Summon Beasts' special attacks require hit points to cast.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Sugar for a female PC, getting annoying when she starts spending time with other women.
  • Continuity Nod: In the second game, an NPC mentions asking Blaire to forge them a new ladle so they can make curry, referring to the first game.
  • Cool Big Sis: V.E is the sister (treated as such anyways, technically the former master's summon beast) AND master of the main characters of Craft Sword Monogatari: Hajimari no Ishi, the third game.
  • Crossover Ship: At the end of the cameo appearance of the Summon Night 1 protagonist, Sugar accuses Pratty of liking them more than her, to which she claims (of they were set to be female) "That's not true. We're both girls."
  • Cute Shotaro Boy: Ritchburn of Craft Sword Monogatari: Hajimari no Ishi certainly qualifies. Arno, too, if you think s/he's a boy.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Sanary.
  • Demonic Possession: Inverted with Dinah, a devil possessed by an angel.
  • Distaff Counterpart
  • Dojikko: The first game opens with Pratty or Cleru falling down the stairs.
    • The start of Swordcraft Story 2 has the main character nearly falling off a cliff.
  • Eleventh-Hour Superpower: Your weapon is infused with your Guardian Beast in order to allow you to damage the Final Boss of the first game. You can choose if you'll sacrifice it or not if don't choose to you'll have to pick the fourth sword making you craft a "downgraded" version of the weapon.
    • In the last fight of the second game, you gain a stronger version of the gem morph.
  • Emergency Weapon: The forging hammer.
  • Excuse Plot: Subverted. At first, it seems like your typical To Be a Master tournament plot, but as the game goes on, the story slowly evolves into a tale of corruption, lies and betrayal.
  • Frictionless Ice
  • Gay Option: The primary reason the game is known about.
  • Genki Girl: Pratty has shades of this. Razzy is a sterling example.
    • Tatiana is this in the second game
    • The greedy guide Tier is also one.
  • Girls Love
  • Go-Go Enslavement: Sanary is victim of this at one point. Creepily, it becomes a running gag.
  • Grand Theft Me: What Passeau does to Nina Nina.
    • Also what Guren Goura wanted to do the the main hero in Swordcraft Story 2.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: Apparently, sometime in the distant past Wystern was invaded by the forces of Silturn. Although the humans of Wystern won in the end, many oni settled down in Wystern and had children. People with names like Rondeau and Shintetsu are descended from these oni. And since Pratty is Shintetsu's child...
    • This would explain why Pratty has a helmet design with two holes in it. She has tufts of hair stick out of them, but it was probably originally designed to accommodate horns.
  • Happiness in Slavery: Most of the summon beasts seem fine with being your partner. However, a lot of them naturally dislike being taken from their homes and enslaved to a human, and it's indicated that summons unlucky enough to belong to someone other than the main character/s are often mistreated.
    • The fact that there are so many "stray" summons as Random Encounters is... troubling. These were Summons that were definitely not happy.
  • Heroic BSOD: EXeLD has a bad habit of literally BSOD-ing whenever something occurs that he deems "impossible".
  • Heroic Sacrifice: In the first game, depending on your choices, your Guardian Beast will fuse with your weapon to defeat the Big Bad, permanently destroying themselves in the process.
  • Hime Cut: Lynn, in the second game.
  • Hopeless Boss Fight: The second battle with Parista.
    • The first battle against Goura in the second game as well.
  • Hot Blood: Pratty again.
    • Tatiana in the second game also has this.
  • Humongous Mecha: Gunvald, in the second game.
  • Idiot Hair: Edgar.
    • Also, Nina Nina and Passeau while still in Nina's body.
  • Ill Girl: Rumari is cursed with a perpetual 'heat disease' and must while away the remainder of her days in a quiet little town. Defied. Not only is she said to have been one of the strongest Craftlords prior to her illness, but she aptly proves that she still is by driving six invading ships back home with only a handful of buddies! What's more, Kouren then claims that Rumari could have done it single-handedly...
  • I Never Said It Was Poison: After obtaining the first Daemon Edge during the walk with Gabriel, he mentions it was the first Daemon Edge, something he wasn't around to learn. While he manages to fool Aera with an excuse, the look on his face and injury to his arm make his status as the black swordsman clear.
  • Internal Reformist: One late game conversation with Kenon has him give this as his reason for remaining in the Gold Guild.
  • Item Crafting: A huge part of the game and the plot.
  • Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: We receive information about Pratty's father in bits and pieces.
  • Killer Rabbit: Rampage Rabbit from the second game. You can fight him once per day for extra experience and items. Just don't call him cute.
  • Large Ham: Blarie in the second game frequently accents lines with Eyedscreen. He's the only character to do this.
    • Incoming Ham: Its first use in the "A hammer is not just for forging weapons. It forges a woman!" line (between the two sentences) makes his character clear for the rest of the game.
  • Lovable Sex Maniac: Lynn, to the point her first line in the game is flashing Aera.
  • Lethal Chef: Tatiana, in the second game.
    • In the first game, rescuing Sanary from soldiers has her attempt at cooking attack you in a Boss Battle.
  • Lethal Joke Item: The Red Hot Ladle is actually the best weapon at breaking enemy weapons, so that you can forge them yourself. Yes, even better than the Infinity+1 Sword created by the Eldritch Abomination possessing someone. It has an endurance of 200, and you can max your skill in it's use to 255, and even if you don't need it for that, melting it down produces more of the notoriously rare Mystic Ore than it takes to produce it. Fridge Logic makes it even funnier in that the lesson in creating a ladle was one of patience being its own reward. The Main Character is so convinced it has to be more than that that they can make a super-weapon out of it.
  • Little Miss Snarker: Dinah from the second game.
  • Master of None: The Guardian Beast Rufeel, the green one wearing a summer hat, in the third game is an all-around GB who can use all kinds of spell, but she isn't the strongest with any of them.
  • May–December Romance: Maybe. Depending on just how old you think Pratty and Sakuro are, and if you interpret their plot as romantic. Possibly including Main Character x Any Summon, verging into Mayfly-December Romance if you consider that the summons are angels/demons/ect and likely to live much longer than a human.
  • Meganekko: Twin sisters Ariel and Mariel.
    • Nina Nina in the second game.
  • Multiple Endings: Has one for each characters you can possibly meet during the end of the day conversations.
  • Muscles Are Meaningless: Chaves has a large muscle bound frame four times the square area of any other human opponent. He is stupidly easy to beat, and the second time you fight him, he can be killed in a few hits. To make things worse, his BFS is no harder for the player character to use than a basic axe.
  • Nintendo Hard: Those who don't come prepared to the final battle will find themselves having a hell of a time defeating the string of final bosses. With limited item and magic use, it makes it harder.
    • Go to the Bonus Dungeon with no proper level and preparation, also the bosses doesn't helps even a bit.
    • Breaking opponents weapons in the third game even with the right skills is not very easy, and you did it? They might have a second. Have fun.
  • Noble Demon: Rasho from the first game.
    • Loki, Dinah (at least half of her) and Lynn, Ryouga in the second game.
    • Killfith in the last game.
  • The Obi-Wan: Craftlord of Sapphire Sakuro in the first game.
    • Blaine annd Ryouga in the second game.
    • Jade seems to be one these in the third game.
  • Only One Name: The second game's PC has a last name ("Colthearts"), it just gets mentioned a grand total of twice, both the in same conversation, to which people react with surprise. Played straight for everyone else but Nina Nina and Gedharm Camcarossa (also mentioned very rarely).
  • Parental Abandonment: The protagonists in both games, as well as a good amount of supporting characters.
  • Pronoun Trouble: Razzy in the first game.
  • Purely Aesthetic Gender: Actually averted in the first game, where a lot of the dialog varies based on the player character. Played straight in the second.
  • Random Encounters
  • Randomly Drops: Thankfully, not a huge part of the game.
  • Repetitive Name: Nina Nina. The PC mocks this by introducing them self as <charname> <charname> and <gbname> <gbname>, to which Nina calls them out on.
  • Rewarding Vandalism: You can smash crates and barrels and get things that you need to craft weapons.
  • The Rival: Varil declares himself this to the main character in the first game.
  • Save Point
  • Say It with Hearts: Sugar, when talking to Pratty.
    • A villager in the item shop in Swordcraft Story 2 does this as well.
  • Script Breaking: In the first game, an event starts after the creation of your first weapon... unless it isn't a "Novice Knife" (you don't get any more recipes at this point, but completing the sidequests will get you two, dependent on your Guardian Beast, and the materials to make them). To progress, you need to grab more materials and make a Novice Knife and watch everyone claim it is your first weapon.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Parista - sort of - in the first game (well, he didn't start evil...).
  • Serious Business: Kids Blacksmithing.
  • Shout-Out: At one point in the game, you are asked if you've heard rumors about a hero from a land in the south. Your choice of answers (male/female, followed by a choice of two personalities) each corresponds to one of the four playable main characters from the original Summon Night, and depending on what combination you pick, that character will show up in the story rather shortly afterward.
    • This also happens in Swordcraft Story 2, with the heroes from Summon Night 2 making a guest appearance.
    • Atlus being Atlus, added some standard pop-culture gags in the translation, like "I love the knuckle. It's so bad."
  • Sickeningly Sweethearts: Byron and Sarin in the second game.
  • Sore Loser: Chaves in the first game. He claims your victory was because of your Guardian Beast despite the fact that he didn't summon his. Bonus points if you didn't actually use your Beast in this battle.
  • Stay in the Kitchen: Inverted in the first game. Pratty tends to fare much better than Cleru in regards to interacting with the other characters, especially Sanary and Razzy.
    • Goura in the second game.
  • Take Your Time: Gets lampshaded a lot in the first game, your character is always late instead of always being right on time.
  • To Be a Master: Particularly in the first game. Everyone wants to be a Craftlord.
  • Tournament Arc: The first game's entire premise.
  • Twin Threesome Fantasy: Pratty herself blushes heavily and goes dreamy at being told she would be fighting twins next. She turns around quickly when they turn out to be a pair of Jerkasses though.
  • Transparent Closet: Pratty and Aera, so very much.
  • Tsundere: Varil, Sanary.
    • Loki, Dinah and all have shades of it...
    • The guardian beast Killfith in the last game.
  • Ultimate Blacksmith: The Player Character him/herself. They are gonna need a lot of training before getting to that point, however.
  • Unholy Holy Sword: In the third game. It's the final boss, mind you.
  • Walking Techbane: The second game's protagonist.
  • We Could Have Avoided All This: The Craftlords are really bad at this, and are overly fond of secrets. When the Craftlord of Jade imprisons the Craftlord of Crystal (his sister's lover) in order to get revenge on the Spirit of Fire who gave his sister a fatal disease, its only after you defeat him, that the previous Jade Craftlord mentions that the Craftlord of Crystal had been working on a way to defeat the Spirit of Fire.
    • "You're telling me this NOW?!" And then he commits suicide.
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer: Quite literally. The first weapon you use is a forging hammer. You're stuck with it until you get materials to make better weapons.

"A hammer is not just for forging weapons. It forges a woman!" (Or man, depending on the player.)

      • "Come on, (player name)! Let's go forge your manhood!" "...please never say that again."
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy: Lemmy/Remii in the third game.
  • Worthy Opponent: Kenon is very respectful and notes his loss was due to the player character being better than them. This is a sharp (and explicitly noted) contrast to the rest of the gold guild.
  • Zettai Ryouiki: Aera and Lynn, in the second game.

The These sub-series contains examples of

  • Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: An oddity for the series, Gran-These has one. Coincidentally, it follows the cycle from Fire Emblem. That is, Light → Dark → Anima → Light. Anima also has its own internal cycle of Water → Fire → Air → Earth.
  • Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: In Gran-These, Lost uses a sword while Millet uses a gun. EX-These has a lesser version: Leonus uses a two-handed sword while Ainna uses a rapier.
  • Schrödinger's Player Character: Notably averted considering the rest of series (except the first Summon Night due to Early Installment Weirdness) follows it. The choice of protagonist in both EX-These and Gran-These is a POV thing. You can switch protagonists in EX-These with the press of a button.
  • Spell My Name with an "S": EX-These has been rendered as "Ecstasy" and "EX-Thesis". To be fair, it was a change from Flight-Plan's usual Gratuitous English where a transliteration could easily be found in the game or the website. Only various books related to the game had it until the series' 10th anniversary celebration. Even there, it was hidden in the background image of the commemoration site. Not to mention the site's navigational display was obscuring it. This meant to see it, one had to stop the page before it finished loading; no easy feat as Japan has the best overall internet speeds in the world. The updated commemoration site has since changed to make it more easily visible.
    • 夜明けの翼 (the subtitle of EX-These) is sometimes erroneously transliterated as "youaku no tsubasa" rather than the correct "youake no tsubasa". This likely has its origin in the scene release group GANT, whose release had the error (along with the "EX-Thesis" spelling), and spread as P2P copied it. GameFAQs had the error at one point, but was later corrected.
  • Video Game 3D Leap: Gran-These.
  • Zettai Ryouiki: The female leads of both games.

Twin Age contains examples of

  1. ↑ Poison Pink/Eternal Poison being the last one.
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