Video Game / Axial Disc 2

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Axial Disc 2 is a 2023 RPG Maker MV developed by Sawyer Friend and published by Gem Games as the second part of the Axial Series. The game follows the antagonists of the previous game, Chip, Ania, and Ciel, and unveils their side of the plot occurring simultaneously to Axial Disc 1 for the first half of the game, before continuing the story from the perspective of the entire cast of both games after the ending point of Disc 1. It is the second part in a two-part series.

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This game contains examples of:

• All the Worlds Are a Stage: Tefka has a new secret dungeon, which is once again based on other maps in the game in order to hint at summon locations. Unlike the previous version of the dungeon, the maps have a more similar layout to their corresponding maps outside of the dungeon, but these maps also periodically swap to RPG Maker XP assets to give it an even glitchier feel.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: During the final encounter with Stardust Axis, the background flashes between previous locations with a galaxy pattern torn between them. The galaxy is meant to show Axis's newfound space powers.
• Ambiguously Related: The game's folder has diary.txt files written by Ren, a mysterious Axial who wants the party to reach the best timeline. One of the files states his dad's team fought Tefka before and that she's surprised whenever she loses to them. This hints that Ren might actually be a Kid from the Future of one or more of the party members. His black hair also has similar green streaks to Amara's hair, which implies that he's Sai and Amara's son.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • If the player missed a Disc 1 summon, a resident of Slate City will sell missing summons for a high price.
  • A building in Main Street has teachers for various classes of magic that Oli can learn, making the process of hunting down rare spells easier.
  • The final dungeon has one bus stop before the Final Boss. Although the narration states that no bus can travel here, the game will still put it on the fast travel list.
• Arbitrary Head Count Limit: Upon recruiting Amara, Chip points out that his party is already full and that he considers 3 the cap. When Ania points out that most RPG parties cap out at 4 people, Chip states that the 4th slot is reserved for Ciel's undead minions.
• Bag of Spilling: Averted with the Disc 1 main party, who retain all their commands and levels if an old save is carried over. If the player did all the side content, the old party will likely be at a higher level than the new party once they rejoin, and Chip will mention if Amara is overleveled enough to fight a multidimensional space goddess.
• Bookends: The opening of the final boss theme is lifted directly from the title theme of the first game.
• Boss Bonanza:
  • In the town, Post Geime, there's a studio that contains four bosses based on the game's composers.
  • The Doppelganger office building in the postgame Spineland area contains 7 enhanced bosses from the Agency from the first game.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: In order to defeat the Final Boss of the previous game, Axiswed, Sai had to cast Big Bang, but the backlash took away his ability to use magic.
• Brutal Bonus Level: Tefka's new dungeon is much harder than the one in her previous game in terms of mobs. Although they still only appear one-at-a-time, their stats are higher than many endgame bosses and they can even use Summon Magic.
• But Thou Must!: In Sai's Dreamscape, Chip will ask you if you want to play video games with him. If you select yes, he will ask you if you're sure, continuously cycling this question until you eventually hit no.
• Childhood Friends: The first party member recruited, Ania, is Chip's friend since childhood. In Arch Plaza, the player can find a time capsule showing their first meeting in Astral Point's daycare center.
• Cooldown Manipulation: Sai loses the Coward trait and gains Cosmic instead, which decreases his cooldowns on full commands. As a drawback, he can no longer lower his aggro and his max MP is lower. Talking to Doople in the Safe Avenue apartment allows Sai to switch between either trait.
• Disc-One Nuke: Due to the Old Save Bonus, it's possible to carry over all summons from the previous game, including Tefka. Tefka alone is capable of obliterating the first boss even on Spinel mode.
• Dual Boss: The boss of Lanster's school is an Eater duo, Braineater and Brawneater.
• Duel Boss:
  • Chip has to duel Eric's robot in order to get access to the security camera room. It's a weaker version of Eric's boss fight from Disc 1, since this battle takes place before that event.
  • Chip has an optional duel against Jean, a gunslinger in Markton. This battle requires Chip to win before Jean can attack with a One-Hit Kill command.
• Egopolis: The optional postgame area Spineland is named after the NPC Spinel's grandfather via an adopt-a-street program. This becomes even more egotistical when noting the creator Sawyer Friend's online pseudonym is also Spinel.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Axis is convinced that his only purpose is destruction and cannot understand the notion of using power for anything else. He enforces this trope by removing any of his memories that could make him doubt his path of destruction and placing them in powerful Eater bosses.
• Evil Reactionary: The leader of the Doppelgangers, 001, wants to reclaim the glory days of the Doppelganger civilization, the same one that built the Shrine of the Elements and the railroad network underneath the Dig Site. He hates the idea of coexisting with humanity and seeks to subjugate them for being lesser beings.
• Evolving Title Screen: The title screen artwork gains more characters as they're recruited in the story, depending on the most recent save.
• Good Morning, Crono: The game opens with Chip in his bed, pretending to be a silent protagonist, being woken up by Ania.
• Gravity Master: After his character arc, Sai acquires the ability to manipulate space magic, which includes Gravity Ball.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Lux joins the party early in the game, but vanishes after The Fall only to be seen again in the final dungeon as a boss.
• Healer Signs On Early: Ania, the first party member, happens to be the most dedicated healer of the party, with her [C]ure trait revolving around healing potency.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • After learning that Axis is the culprit behind the fall of Astral Point and that the rogue Axial intends to destroy Stardust City, Chip's party joins forces with Oli's party in order to stop their mutual enemy. Chip also abandons his grudge against Sai and is friendlier to the party now that he doesn't have the pressure of trying to impress Swed, though he still chafes with Oli.
  • After the fall of Astral Point, some of the agents who participated in the raid on Slate City regret their actions and join the commune that they tried to destroy.
  • In the True Ending, Axis decides to seek a purpose other than destruction and fuses with all the Eaters so that Stardust City can rebuild without interference. He then ascends to outer space on good terms with the party.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The first boss fight against Axis isn't meant to be won, since he has twice the stats from his optional fight in Disc 1. Meanwhile, Chip's party will likely be in the mid 20s to early 30s through normal leveling. If the player manages to win, Ren will compliment them before forcing them into a Non-Standard Game Over.
• Hypocrite: 001, the leader of the Doppelgangers, despises humanity and claims that his species is too superior to coexist with them. However, Joshua points out 001 has to rely on his business ventures with humans in order to keep his plans afloat, which is an example of coexistence.
• Ignored Epiphany: Disc 2 replays several of Chip's cutscenes from Disc 1, but with his inner thoughts. After his duel with Sai, Chip briefly considers taking Sai's offer to join the party because he secretly disagrees with how Swed is running the city, but ends up refusing because he's still obsessed with finding his purpose and gaining Swed's approval.
• Kick the Dog: Axis appears several times with no specific intention other than intimidating and tormenting the party. After one of these occasions, when Amara asks where Axis has gone, Chip remarks that he's "probably looking for a dog to kick." One of his worst actions is reviving Sidney as an Eater zombie to guilt trip the party. He states that he wants to inflict "mental destruction" on the party to demoralize them and make his own quest to destroy Stardust City more efficient.
• Kick the Morality Pet: In the final dungeon, Lux is willing to help Axis destroy the world just to take revenge on Amara. Although he tries to tell Ciel to retreat, he's still willing to kill her when she fights alongside Amara, despite Ciel being his girlfriend as well as the only person he's consistently nice to, showing how far he's fallen.
• Misplaced Retribution: Lux aids Axis in the destruction of Stardust City in order to get revenge on Amara. He doesn't care who else gets killed by this and is even willing to kill Ciel when the latter tries to convince him to stand down.
• Monster Arena: Beat's arcade has an arena where the party must fight an endless series of battles until they lose or run away. Items are forbidden and the party is set at level 50. Each win nets the party some BP, with longer winstreaks resulting in better rewards. However, the player can only hold 255 BP maximum, making longer winstreaks pointless if BP is maxed.
• Multiple Endings:
  • The Good Ending requires the party to use at least four but less than eight memories on Axis. As a result, Axis momentarily doubts his path of destruction, but states that this isn't enough to change his mind. He then enters his Overflow form to do battle once more, and when he loses, he laments that he couldn't find an answer other than destruction and hopes whatever comes from his remains will be able to find it. The party works to rebuild Stardust City, but there are still Eaters threatening the public.
  • The True Ending requires the party to use all eight memories on Axis, which also requires all eight party members. This causes Axis to question his path of destruction, but he still can't find an answer. He drags everyone into his Dreamquest for one final battle, where he achieves a new form that is both stronger than Overflow and gives him power over space. After his defeat, he decides to look for his purpose in space, but makes sure to fuse with all Eaters first so that Stardust City can recover without the Eater threat.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In the Clock Tower, Chip's party defeats Mas and interrogates him to learn that KING is the one who hacked into the Agency, which they report to the rest of the organization. When Chip loses contact with his online friend, KING23, he realizes the two KINGs are one and the same and that he accidentally allowed the agency to kill the latter. This causes Chip to have a Freak Out that unleashes an EMP strong enough to knock out the power in Astral Point. This in turn allows Axis to escape his room, and Chip eventually realizes he's responsible for the main conflict of Disc 2 as well.
• No Kill like Overkill: Ren, the game's superboss, has a signature move which deals 9,999 damage to each party member, although the maximum HP a party member can have is only 999.
• Old Save Bonus: Upon beginning the game, the save data can be transferred from Axial Disc 1, carrying over all equipment and party member stats. This will also cause the game to acknowledge if Sai defeated Chip in their second duel or if the Disc 1 party defeated Axis in the floor 13 lab.
• Optional Boss: The game has several bosses that are balanced to be fought before the final dungeon, but they aren't mandatory.
  • Doppelganger 064 tasks the party with defeating their Doppelganger counterparts, all of which have gimmicks that the player needs to think around. Beating them is necessary to unlock the postgame Doppelganger fights.
  • The Bookwyrm is the only mandatory Axis memory boss. The other memory bosses are the Braineater and Brawneater duo, Scrappeater, Nesseater, Puncheater, Thirsteater, Defeatricity, Diggeater, and Necromeater. The player only needs to defeat four of the remaining memories in order to enter the final dungeon, but beating all of them is necessary for the True Ending.
  • Jean is a Duel Boss for Chip in Markton, and beating him earns the party Jean's summon accessory.
• Perspective Flip: The game begins with the perspective of Chip's team of agents than the main protagonists of the first game, whose story takes place concurrently with theirs.
• Poke in the Third Eye: When the party views one of Axis's memories, Ren forces his way in, talks about Axis's future, and looks at the viewer, telling them to meet him in the Clock Tower.
• Redemption Demotion: In Disc 1, Chip activated Overflow in order to serve as a powerful boss in the final dungeon. In this game, Chip can no longer activate Overflow easily due to losing his purpose of defeating Sai. He can temporarily enter this form for his team's Second Disc multi, but cannot maintain it for anything more than this attack.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: In the True Ending, Axis stops trying to destroy Stardust City, but he still has his trademark Brutal Honesty. He makes it clear that he's not going to help fix the damage he caused beyond getting rid of the Eaters and that his priority is to go to space to go on a journey of self-discovery.
• Secret Art: While many characters are able to utilize magic, it is revealed in this game that only Chip has mastered the ability to utilize magnet magic. To drive home how rare and difficult this school of magic is, none of the human teachers in the Days of Magic building can teach magnet spells to Oli, and Oli can only learn these spells from Chip and the magnet Cyber. Even then, Chip has magnet commands that Oli cannot learn.
• Sequential Boss: The final fight with Axis which begins in his base form and branches off into Overflow, or Stardust, depending on which ending you got.
• Sheathe Your Sword: When Chip tries to offer an alliance with Oli, she refuses and challenges him to a Duel Boss fight. To advance the story, Chip has to use the Hold action enough times in a row to get Oli to realize he's being sincere.
• Superboss: This game has several postgame bosses that are stronger than the Final Boss.
  • In Spineland's office building, the player will have to fight doppelganger versions of Disc 1 agent bosses, which include, Roy, Eric, Arlyn, Lux, Sidney, Chip, Ania, Ciel, and Swed. This unlocks a fight against Doppelganger 001, who can copy the party.
  • Four shameless self insert bosses against the games' composers and its director, which include Hazelstorm, Retroreaper, CallMeDJ, and Spinel's doppelganger. They can all be rechallenged, though Spinel himself will fill in for his doppelganger with the exact same stats and moveset.
  • Tefka's tower form can be fought again by finding all the Disc 2 summons, and then her stronger city form can be fought by finding all Disc 1 summons through carrying them from an Old Save Bonus or buying them at Slate City.
  • An "Omegaboss" named Ren, who wants to test the party for cryptic purposes and has a habit of randomly One-Hit KOing the party if they don't predict his moves and interrupt him. While his first form isn't much stronger than the other postgame bosses, his Overflow form has Level 99 stats and ignores the player's chosen difficulty mode just to keep you from cheesing the fight.
• Take Your Time: Even though Axis threatens to destroy the city "at any moment", this never actually occurs no matter how long it takes for the party to finally defeat him. However, the fact that he can make good on his threat makes the party consider rushing into the final dungeon before defeating all the memory bosses, in case Axis changes his mind. This is justified because Axis wants the party to destroy his memories, which he fears will make him falter in his path of destruction.
• Token Heroic Orc: 064 is a Doppelganger who opposes the leader 001's plans to dominate humanity. This is partly because he fell in love with the wife of the man he's disguised as, and is pretending to be that man so that the woman doesn't go through the pain of losing him.
• Villain Opening Scene: The game opens on a monologue from Axis, the main antagonist of Disc 2, who explains that Chip is the one who will bring about his downfall.
• Water Source Tampering: The party notes that if the Eaters threaten the Water Tower, it could lead to the whole city's water supply being jeopardized. Fortunately, they are able to beat the Eater boss before it can cause any major damage to the tower.
• Wham Episode: After the Mas arc, the turning point of the story known as The Fall occurs, where the game picks up where Disc 1 left off. At this point, the Agency is no longer in power, several civilians and agents are homeless, Sai loses his magic, the Eater infestation becomes worse than before, and Axis becomes the main threat to Stardust City.