Trinity Universe (video game)

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The Main Cast

Trinity Universe is a Massively Multiplayer Crossover RPG created by Nippon Ichi Software, Idea Factory and Gust Corporation for the Play Station 3. Oddly, it's a little short on the massive, with only a handful of guest characters from two series, Atelier and Disgaea. It is noteworthy for being the first time characters from either of those series have appeared in 3D polygon form. The game owes a lot to Cross Edge, with large chunks of its battle system and bestiary being lifted directly from the former game.

Trinity Universe take place in the Netheruniverse, where space debris and odd junk drifts to. The city of Empyria is located in the middle of it, protected from impacting space junk by the Demon God Gem, which requires sacrificing a member of the royal family to create. The latest sacrifice, Kanata, has broken free and is looking for another solution, when he's not getting distracted. Meanwhile, Rizelea, a Valkyrie, is investigating the cause of the drifting space junk as well as chasing after Kanata to force him to become Demon God Gem.

The gameplay is pretty standard, but the writing and characters are memorable and funny. Note that it has nothing to do with White Wolf's tabletop RPG series.

Tropes used in Trinity Universe (video game) include:

Lucius: *sniff* ... Tch. What, am I a low-tier supporting role now?

  • Berserk Button: If you are stupid enough to steal one of Flonne's space cruisers, make sure never to lose it by the time she catches up to you or else "[SHE] WON'T EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER FORGIVE YOU!"
  • BFS: Kanata and he holds it one-handed.
  • Big Breasts, Big Deal: Tsubaki is a type 3. She mainly does this to taunt Etna.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Played with. Flonne stays behind with Lucius and the others to fight some minor enemies to intentionally set this up. It doesn't work out.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Tsubaki, to the point where Kanata's the only one that isn't aware of it. Amusingly, Kanata actually seems genuinely happy whenever she reveals herself in front of him.
    • However, there is an even bigger Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. It turns out to be Rizelia's boss, Giga Goddess X, who also answers to Ashura.
  • Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: The central ingredient in everything Rizelia makes.
  • Bonus Boss: After finishing the game and earning the True Ending, ten gates open up in Yoma King Castle, giving you the chance to challenge some of the hardest end game bosses in the entire game. The most powerful one would have to be Vile Shin Dragon. Even if you're level 999, you still need some work to do just to dent him. Not only do physical attacks miss on him, unless you grind your HIT to around 50k, he can still dent your HP even if you have over 100k on your life. Hint: use your magicians especially Flonne to even put a dent on his HP. And abuse Barrier.
  • Break Meter: As the Chapter 3 tutorial indicates, certain enemies have a Soul Barrier that largely reduces damage taken from attacks. However, with repeated attacks, either by certain elemental or EX skills, the barrier will fall, and the enemy is rendered Soul Broken, having reduced defenses. However, this can come with an increase in offensive power, and certain enemies can rebuild their barrier or have a second one, which has lead to an below-mentioned exploit that can reap massive amounts of Experience.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: A lot of lines, but the Prinnies and Etna are especially fond of it.
    • --> Prinny: He doesn't really stand out, dood. He's gotta appeal to the audience and break the fourth wall like us, dood.
  • Brick Joke: The collectible space cruiser that Etna loses and Flonne is after her for is one of the random dungeons that can drift in. Most likely the player won't see it until long after that plot thread is forgotten, though it's also quite possible it could show up with perfect timing.
  • Buffy-Speak: Pamela on Violet:

Pamela: She can create stuff by combining other stuff with things.

Could you guys handle this? I'm busy drinking this... Juice.

  • Gag Dub: The localization has many more jokes and references thrown into the dialog.
  • Genki Girl: Flonne, of course. Mizuki and Rizelia are also good examples.
  • Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: When confronting Recit a second time as Kanata, Kanata decides to fight Recit to wake him up. The others feel it's just a waste of time.
  • Heroic BSOD: Lucius, after an Next Episode skit playing him as a Hero of Light.

N-no, this isn't me... I'm not this... We're not me... I'm not you...

Time for a kamikaze rush! We may be expendable, but in a pinch we can be worth our weight in gold, dood!

  • Idiot Hair: Lucius has "invented" an antenna that acts as a tension gauge.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Fans, umbrellas, brooms, and frying pans to name a few. Prinnies get special mention in that they start out dual wielding knives, but weapon upgrades change this to fish and popsicles.
  • Item Crafting: Again, mostly lifted from Cross Edge. About 90% of the game's items are exclusively ingredients for this.
  • Kitsune: Tsubaki. Many of her attacks even involve foxfire.
  • Lethal Chef: Rizelea. Her cooking is so spicy it burns your skin before you even taste it. She seems to enjoy it though.
  • Level Grinding: You will find yourself doing a lot of this before traveling between areas.
  • Light Is Not Good: Giga Goddess X aka Ashura.
  • Limit Break
  • Lovable Coward: The prinnies.

We'll back you up from, uh, really far back, dood!

  • Mood Whiplash: The game has a habit of going from funny to serious to funny again within seconds.
  • Multiple Endings: Each path has a bad, normal, and best endings as well as a final true path.
  • Mythology Gag: Upon hearing that Lucius and Violet are not into anime, Flonne tries to introduce them into one. The series in question? Disgaea.

Prinny: Maybe we'll get a documentary about our disappearance someday: 'Prinny: Can I Really Be Lost in Space?,' dood.

Miyu: A fox, a cat, a penguin, and a dog? I want some animal crackers!

"As long as I, the Universal Witch of Justice, Galaxy Superstar Gothic Lolita Flonne, live, it won't happen!"
Galaxy Angel Sniper, Turbo Flonne EX-S!

  • Shaped Like Itself: This gem from Flonne: "It might be judgemental, but villains are always up to villainous things!"
  • Shout-Out: After Recit immediately confesses that he's the one who destroyed all the cash registers, the Prinnies are upset over the lack of suspense in this investigation. They and Pamela follow it up with this:
  • Simultaneous Arcs: The Demon Dog King (dark) path and the Valkyrie (light) path take place at the same time from different points of view.
    • Take note that 'Point of view' is the key phrase here. Whichever side you're playing through generally comes away with the win, but you have to play through both sides in order to really piece everything together.
  • Spell My Name with an "S": Prior to the U.S. release, there were numerous different romanizations for Rizelea [1]. Lucius had this problem as well with his name being pronounced "Loo-Ki-Us". And, of course, there's Violet/Viorate.
  • Take That: Several. Most Notable is the Chapter 13 Opening Dialog where Etna comments "It's better than some random mastermind showing up and saying we're all characters in a videogame...isn't that a horrible twist?" A not so subtle nod to Star Ocean: Till the End of Time.
  • Team Mom: Violet.
  • Title Drop: Some of the victory quotes will end with the entire party shouting Trinity Universe.
  • Too Many Belts: Recit. One of his belts is used as a headband.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Violet loves carrots. So much so that her starter weapon is a carrot staff and she summons giant exploding carrots as a Limit Break. It's also all she cooks...

Lucius: More carrots? I am neither a horse nor a rabbit, woman. I think you've got a serious fetish.

  1. Examples include Rizelia, Lyselia, Lizelia...