The Element Chronicles II: Fall of the Rise

The Element Chronicles II: Fall of the Rise would be an open-world action-adventure RPG for all current platforms, the sequel to one of my earliest ideas, The Element Chronicles. This idea has been a long time incoming, and thankfully, I thought of an interesting way to follow up my most well-known idea. This iteration would take slightly less inspiration from The Legend of Zelda games and more from games like Xenoblade Chronicles X and older Final Fantasy games.

Make no mistake, most of the core mechanics of combat, weapon customization, and exploration would return from the original; however, this time, the open overworld would have more scope and would be traversible by more means, making room for more quests, terrain, and enemy varieties in the world of Hanifell.

This game would revolve around Hanifell years after the events of the first installment, in which its people have developed more advanced elementally-powered technology in an extensive industrial revolution known as the Rise; this Rise, however, has led to controversy over the propriety of, and implications behind, such use of this power. All this combines with the interference of Zyr, god of mischief, to cause the beginnings of a civil war which a new hero of Hanifell must bring to an end, one way or another.

Story
The Element Chronicles II takes place during a period of growing prosperity in Hanifell known as the Rise, during which society is advancing at a rapid pace by finding ways to systematically employ the power of the elements to fuel their lives. The towns and cities that were relatively simple and medieval as of the previous game have grown significantly to become stronger and more efficient.

However, there predictably emerge a faction of people who believe that such exploitation of the elements is immoral, selfish, and bound to anger the gods presiding over the world. This resistance has only shown itself as activism for the most part, but a tipping point is approaching where an outbreak of conflict could result, possibly even a civil war. Hanifell is at a crossroads where it must decide whether or not to move forward technologically or maintain a lifestyle of simplicity in accordance with what is considered 'natural.'

Conversely, a similar movement has emerged to promote the advancement of technology, who assert that the people of Hanifell were allowed to control the elements however they wished because the gods wanted to see them develop to their highest potential. This movement, called the Pro-Rise, is led by a woman named Tessira Lordwell, whose good-natured personality and intelligence have won her a large following, yet many people accuse her of being subversive and double-dealing.

The Anti-Rise, on the other hand, is led by a man named Alvaro Previnas and his son Etris. Alvaro is known for being stubborn but not unreasonable. Alvaro is passionate and conservative in his thinking, and is difficult to say no to; his son is slightly more emotionally driven, but is a good complement to his father's attitude.

Part 1: The Stranger
As tensions increase over the Rise, the controversy attracts the attention of Zyr, the high god of mischief and conflict. He decides to take human form and informally plays for both sides of the issue, but makes it more severe himself. He incites the anger of the Anti-Rise by sabotaging the operation of the newest major elemental innovations, causing them to malfunction and take lives as a result. Next, he provokes the Pro-Rise by destroying tech installations outright, and leaving evidence incriminating the Anti-Rise movement. Accusations fly back and forth, and active violence begins popping up across the land.

This conflict warrants intervention by the government of Hanifell, led by head magistrate Zeta, the hero of the first game. Upon becoming suspicious of recent events, he sends the hero of this game to investigate and lead the effort to contain the fighting. This hero will be customizable the same way Zeta was in the first Element Chronicles, but for the purposes of this, the main character will be a female character named Kade, which would be the default name for both genders.

Upon investigating the matter, Kade ends up knee-deep in the Rise Engagement, as the public is branding it. She ends up holding off forces on both sides, as her occupation is to stop outright conflict rather than take a side, and is thus exposed to the intricacies of the feud, which are to come into play later. As time goes on, Kade begins to catch on to the fact that the meddling is being carried out by one person, clad in dark clothing. Even when this is publicly exposed, the warring continues on regardless, as it is now seen as an inevitable outcome.

Thus, Kade takes the only route she can: pursue whoever is behind the warmongering and bring them to justice; little does she know that this will put her at odds with a god.

Part 2: The God of Mischief
Kade takes on a number of quests to aid people affected by the Rise Engagement before tracking down Zyr through Terraitra, then Frigidon, and into Morthea. There she pursues him into a deep cave, where his true nature is revealed to her for the first time. He conceals himself tactfully in the darkness, and uses this advantage to attack the player with no chance of fighting back. At this point, he tries to convince Kade that though he is doing this mainly for his own whimsy, it is all too telling of a hard-to-accept truth about humanity: it will eventually destroy itself through its lack of decisiveness.

But despite all his grandstanding, Zyr is still the god of mischief, and decides to make things interesting by presenting Kade with a challenge. If she can end the fighting, he'll agree to stop his interference for the time being. Kade consults Zeta about the issue, and he expresses concern, advising her to venture to the depths of the Elemental Realms as he did years before to try to contact the elemental gods. Perhaps, he suggests, their word might have an impact.

She takes his advice and journeys to the realms one by one, and finds that the gods are consistently aware of the problem, but take different stances on it. Some think that the Rise represents an abuse of their power, while others are indifferent to how it's used. Finding this to be the case, Kade comes up with a plan to reform the legendary Shizen Blade.

Part 3: The Blade's Judgment
Upon reforming the Shizen Blade, Kade returns to the central castle of Hanifell to find it emptier than usual. She barely manages to find out what's happening from a soldier on his way out the doors, who says that the largest clash yet between Pro-Rise and Anti-Rise forces is about to take place in the deserts of Thermoth. Kade races there as quickly as possible.

On arriving at the desert plains on a rare dark, rainy night, Kade finds two sizable armies of machine and magic about to erupt into pitched battle, held back only by Zeta and his forces. Just as things are about to get out of hand, Kade interferes and uses the Shizen Blade to channel all of the nearby elemental energy, rendering both sides nearly helpless. Quiet falls, and Kade calmly informs that unless either side wanted to strangle the other with their bare hands, there would be no fighting.

Zyr arrives on the scene, quite upset by this turn of events. He accuses Kade of cheating and using what was essentially a trump card to end the war. Kade retorts that she didn't do anything he wouldn't have done, and he's only made it clear that he wanted to see the people of Hanifell break down into savagery.

Things had reached a clear impasse, so Zyr forces a one-on-one battle between him and Kade, teleporting her to a bizarre dimension where the only direction she can go is up, to a celestial sphere of light and energy. There, the power of the Shizen Blade is pitted in a pernicious battle against the might and cunning of Zyr. It starts to look like Kade is fighting a losing battle, until the world around the battle is suddenly distorted and everything seems to stop. Sentris, god of time, and Vaia, goddess of space, intervene and level their combined powers against Zyr, the third of their trio of power, stopping his rage just long enough to give Kade the Metakhronos Sword, a weapon conceived by Zyr that could ironically be used to defeat him.

Wielding both the Shizen Blade and the Metakhronos Sword, Kade is able to confine Zyr's powers and winnow away his energy until the cosmic battleground collapses.

Part 4: Ending Sequence
Outgunned and weakened, Zyr is sent back into the nebulous void of creation, swearing to return one day. Sentris and Vaia commend Kade for her extraordinary efforts, and explain that they waited so long to interfere with the actions of their "sibling" simply because they generally try to stay out of mortal affairs, and thus waited until there was no other course of action to take.

As a way of reversing the damage done by Zyr, Sentris and Vaia undo the fighting caused by his treachery, but leave the Shizen Blade in Kade's possession. It becomes clear that they do this for a reason, because ultimately, fighting breaks out once again between the Pro-Rise and Anti-Rise. This leads to the availability of a postgame questline where the player can decide to choose a side in the engagement and resolve the conflict if they so desire.

Dimensional Admin. Easter Egg
Much like in the previous game, Isaac and Aria from Dimensional Administrator: The Locked Dimension would appear in a hidden easter egg. Visiting the site of the final battle with Zyr again will reveal a dimensional rift allowing the player to travel to the Dimensional Metropolis, Isaac and Aria's home and recreational city.

As it turns out, Isaac and Aria are making a long game out of recreating the conflict going on in Hanifell, with Isaac being part of the Anti-Rise and Aria being part of the Pro-Rise movement. After exploring the mini-hubworld that is the metropolis, Kade will find Isaac and Aria and can challenge either one to a battle against their respective armies. After beating both separately, Kade can challenge them both at the same time, and if she can make it through this challenge, she earns a time brake upgrade that will allow her to momentarily slow down time during combat.

Other Easter Eggs
In the main capital city of Hanifell, the player would be able to take part in a rooftop parkour challenge, and completing it fast enough will grant them the Vid Gloves, a pair of gloves styled after those worn by the twin raccoons in my idea Vid Bros. These gloves make the player generally quicker, in areas like movement, climbing, and combat.

In Volcindra, the player could encounter a mysterious dark figure on an ash-covered mountaintop who challenges them to a one-on-one fistfight. Upon winning, the figure would quickly retreat off into the distance, but leave behind a red-orange, pixelated-looking headband called the Katsu Special, a reference to Katsuo Akiyama, the main protagonist of Pixel Fighters.

Lastly, in the vast plains of the blizzard-ridden realm of Frigidon, the player would see a moving, glowing orb in the distance through the area of densest snowfall in the game. Following it would lead the player into an endless-looking hole in the ground. Going into this hole would lead into a temperate underground cavern, full of vegetation, running water, and insects. The player would then have to pursue the moving orb deep into this cavern until it finally disappears from sight, leaving behind a flashing rainbow-colored stone called  'Spicable Stone, a reference to Glowthos the Great, which can be used to upgrade a weapon and provides quicker elemental recharge when in use.

Combat
As I mentioned before, this game wouldn't change much of its original formula, so you can reference that page to see some of the basics. Combat would be roughly the same, though possibly refined to be more realistic. The primary difference in combat would be affected by the option to use the advanced tech available from the Rise. The player would have access to a variety of rudimentary guns and crossbows powered up by elements such as fire, ice, and electricity.

This game would also include a couple new types of combat: whip combat using flexible, elementally powered metallic whips that would allow you to seize or pull on the weapons of certain enemies, and a combination of a rapier and dagger for quick fighting.

Exploration
The most significant change from one game to another would be the increased potential for exploration; the same elemental realms return from the original game, though they are much more expanded through the passage of time. Instead of just being able to traverse these realms on horseback and on foot, the player would be able to use large air gliders, small airships, and rather clunky mech suits.

These modes of transportation would improve dynamically, with players being able to purchase new parts and outfit them with new weaponry. It wouldn't be unusual to encounter enemies with this equipment in the world itself, so making them stronger might prove to be a necessity in the long run.

As you might have guessed from all this, the ability to explore an open world would return in full force; the player would be able to see things in the distance and go to them, no questions asked, and quests would be scattered throughout the overworld that would lead the player to a variety of locations like deep caves, temples, tombs, and more. The treasure within these places could be anything from straight-up gold to gems that you could to upgrade your weapons and gear (as each piece of gear would have a certain amount of upgrade slots to be made stronger) to new equipment altogether. There would be a wide variety of gear for a wide variety of places hiding it, and much like in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, gear would come with certain attributes to make it unique. Certain weapons could be melded to create stronger weapons with a custom mixture of attributes.

Dynamic Events
To add even more spice to the overall experience, there would be a variety of significant sidequest events in the game that would only take place at a certain time of day, or only on certain days in a cycle. This way, there are plenty of things to look for, even in the postgame, and the world has lots of intricacies for the player to look for.

In addition, the player would occasionally have to deal with military forces on either side of the Rise Engagement; since Kade is tasked with stopping the fighting in general, she's targeted by both sides. Each different type of enemy is a different threat, as well: Pro-Rise forces employ more mechanical weaponry while Anti-Rise forces focus on a more archaic brand of weaponry focused more on basic elemental magic. These detachments would vary in size, and it would even be possible to find outposts on either side to be neutralized.

The dynamic of these encounters would change, however, if the player took a side in the conflict during the postgame, in which case one side would become a friendly asset.

Of course, dynamic events wouldn't be limited to the Rise Engagement. Everything could happen from mystical excursions to boss fights with various gigantic beasts. This variety would be meant to enrich the overworld, even into the postgame.