Video Game / Perseverance: Full Clearance

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Long before the events of Intelligence: 314th Clash, Britain was taken over by the lich, Highlord Naxon, who commands a cult of ghostly pigs, along with several powerful direct underlings. The Cookiedoe family and their allies formed a resistance movement, the Perseverance Union, to oppose the Naxonite Order through sheer determination and unpredictability. However, they soon learn that Naxon himself is part of a higher conflict that is far beyond the paygrade of mere mortals.

This game is an Action-Adventure game that has both combat and puzzles, but uses tile-based movement and hitboxes. The player can obtain several weapons with their own hitboxes and gimmicks, and beating the game will require them to both know their own hitboxes and the enemies' attack patterns.

Has an itch page here.

This game contains examples of:

• The Ageless: Those who activate their devil or angel gene stop aging. Since Pep activated his devil powers as a teenager, he will never grow to adulthood.
• Ambiguously Evil: Splode seems to be an ally to the Perseverance Union, but he is later seen in Naxon's inner circle, which is why he knows about the Helgate in the Archonite Caverns. At the same time, he never reveals vital information about the Union to the Naxonites, making it hard to pin down his loyalty. Esperia eventually kills him, which implies that his loyalty is with the Union.
• Balance Between Good and Evil: The setting's equivalent of heaven is Galvana while their hell equivalent is Heldath. The forces of Galvana are supposed to foster life in places with low populations while the forces of Heldath are supposed to wipe out life in overpopulated locations. However, the executives of Heldath are also prone to fulfilling their directive in selfish and sadistic ways, as shown when Naxon turns Britain into a dystopia for his own amusement and Esperia torments the Perseverance Union in order to steal their powers.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: The Final Boss fight takes place in Pep's mind, where he must defeat Xepp in order to prove that he can survive the real world without the latter. This consists of a timed survival phase, a fight against a giant Xepp where only barrels will do damage, and a final fight against Xepp in his regular form.
• Beneath the Mask: Sped comes off as an unflappable, devil-may-care rebel, but in an optional conversation with Nola, he admits that he sometimes wishes he could flee the country with his family and give up on rebellion in favor of finding a peaceful life. However, he notes this isn’t an option because the Naxonites would hunt him down anyways.
• Benevolent Boss: Despite being the Greater-Scope Villain of the Hedalthian forces, Seradath can be surprisingly gracious. When Esperia asks for his help in conducting a ritual to restore Pep's mortal psyche, he obliges despite how this has nothing to do with the Heldathians' mission.
• Big Bad: Naxon is the leader of the Naxonites, a supernatural force that rules Britain with an iron fist. However, it turns out he actually answers to Esperia, who in turn answers to the Greater-Scope Villain, Seradath. Esperia ends up being the greater threat, since she is an Invincible Villain who is much more competent, cruel, and powerful than Naxon, and she nearly makes Pep succumb to despair by killing his family and the population of Britain.
• Blue Blood:
  • The Cookiedoe line is descended from Tiramisa, the only survivor of the royal family after Naxon enacted a coup.
  • The Worthington family and Kara are descended from royals who sided with Tiramisa against the Naxonites.
• Brainwashed: Naxon used the Sacrament parchment in order to brainwash the population of Britain into being compliant with his rule. After Sven destroys the parchment, Pep has little trouble rallying much of the population to the Perseverance Union’s rebellious cause.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Esperia only spares certain members of the Perseverance Union because she knows they have the angel and devil genes, meaning she can become stronger by sucking their blood.
• Cessation of Existence: Xepp, Pepp's demon psyche, states that if the angel psyche also awakens, they will cause Pep to have both angelic and demonic powers. This would cause a contradiction in the universe's laws, causing Pep to be erased from existence. This goes beyond simply dying, since most dead characters end up in Galvana or Heldath while erased characters have no afterlife.
• Cruel Mercy: If Esperia wants to drain the demonic or angelic power of her target, she usually refrains from killing them immediately in favor of dragging out their suffering until they submit to her, both out of sadism and to make the draining as efficient as possible.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Esperia turned into a sadistic, power-hungry Death Seraph due to once being a human child grew up with an Abusive Dad. Her father beat her loving mother to death and then abandoned her. This caused her to become obsessed with power and domination in order to avoid being hurt again.
• Defiant to the End: At the top of the Sty building, Sven knows he won’t be able to survive the explosives that Naxon planted in the building. He uses his last moments to destroy Naxon’s Sacrament parchment in the blind hope that it’ll impede his killer somehow. This ends up breaking Naxon’s brainwashing over Britain.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Pep’s teacher straps him to a torture machine as punishment for chronic tardiness.
• Dug Too Deep: In the Archonite Caverns, Saxxis once excavated the location in order to harvest Archonite as an energy source, but eventually dug his way to a Helgate, which he accidentally activated. This summoned Naxon and his allies, who proceeded to take over Britain.
• Eye Scream: Esperia once captured Sped and damaged his eyes while torturing him, which is why he always wears a blindfold.
• Fallen Hero: Saxxis used to be a scientist who saved the world from a global hunger crisis and made advancements in medical technology. Now he’s a high-ranking servant of Highlord Naxon, the cruel dictator of Britain.
• For Science!: Saxxis joins Highlord Naxon’s cult in order to gain the opportunity to advance his scientific research and otherwise isn’t very loyal to the latter. When he realizes Naxon likely won’t forgive him for his latest failure on the railway, Saxxis decides to leave the cult because he won’t be able to continue his research anyways and because he secretly regrets working for them.
• Glass Cannon: The Demyzel can take Nola out in two hits and can teleport, but they die in one hit even to the weakest weapons. However, the game recommends running from the first two encounters with them, since they show up in a group of 3. Later, the game gives the player a weapon that covers a decently large area while fighting the Demyzels in a small enclosed space, and the battle can easily swing in either direction.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Seradath, the leader of Heldath, is the master of Naxon and Esperia, as well as the one who granted the devil gene to the Cookiedoe family. Naxon and Esperia act on his orders in order to depopulate mortals, though they are prone to pursuing their own ambitions that aren't necessary for these orders.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • In the endgame, Saxxis confesses to the party about his role in bringing Naxon into the world and how much he regrets it, and then gives Pep a new weapon.
  • After killing Svoli in front of her son Pep, Esperia realizes that she is becoming no better than her abusive father. She gives up on fighting the Perseverance Union and helps Pep regain control of his body and angel gene.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • In the Heartwoods, Sped blows up the forest and him with it in order to allow the rest of the Perseverance Union to escape.
  • During the fall of London Tower, Kara sacrifices herself to break Pep's fall, even though that was the last of her nine lives.
  • In the penultimate act, Nola stabs herself with her shuriken in order to fuel Esperia's ritual, which will allow them both to enter Pep's mind and restore his mortal psyche.
• Invincible Villain:
  • Esperia is a Death Seraph who is capable of destroying the world if she wants to, but she always toys with her opponents to give them a Hope Spot. Worse yet, she can revive infinitely no matter how many times she is killed. After Pep defeats Naxon, Esperia reveals that Naxon was serving her all along and proceeds to kill all of Pep’s friends and the population of London without any effort. Even when Pep defeats her with his demonic powers, she ambushes Pep and the recently revived Svoli and Nola, and then paralyzes them. The only reason she doesn’t want to kill Pep yet is because she needs to crush his hopes in order to extract as much power from him as possible. If she didn’t have a last minute Heel Realization after killing Svoli, the story would have no realistic way of ending even on a bittersweet note.
  • To a lesser extent, Naxon cannot be killed even after Pep destroys his phylactery. However, this puts him out of commission for much longer than Esperia, who can immediately return after death.
• Irony: Most members of the anarchist-coded resistance, the Perseverance Union, are descended from royal bloodlines.
• It Is Beyond Saving: After Esperia destroys most of Britain with her soulcatcher army, Xepp decides to destroy all that remains of the country because at this point, there are barely any survivors and the place is filled with too many bad memories for his host, Pep. Nola disagrees and becomes a Hero Antagonist boss to stop Xepp, but loses, leading to Xepp completely demolishing Britain with explosives.
• Kaiju: Warth'og is a kaiju-sized dread pig who is taller than entire buildings. Pep has to fight him by jumping between buildings and shooting the latter's eyes.
• La Résistance: The Perseverance Union, led by Sped, is a group of rebels who oppose Highlord Naxon after he overthrew the previous monarchy.
• Mental World: The final dungeon takes place inside Pep's mind, where he has to fight Xepp and prove he's ready to face the real world without the latter's help.
• A Million Is a Statistic: Played with in Esperia’s case. She feels no guilt over killing most of the residents of London, but has a Heel Realization when killing Svoli in front of her son Pep, since this reminds her of when her own mother died in front of her. In this case, it’s less out of concern for Pep specifically and more because this action is too personally cruel for her to stomach.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Naxon promised his cultists that they could improve Britain by overthrowing the ineffectual monarchy. While the royals weren’t very popular, Naxon himself turns out to be much worse and brutally oppresses the populace under an authoritarian government. After his first boss fight, Naxon gloats about turning a different world into a dystopia, making it clear that his goal is dystopia for its own sake. Later, it’s revealed that the forces of Heldath are meant to lower the world’s population to maintain balance, but Naxon considers that goal secondary to controlling mortals for his amusement.
• Parting-Words Regret: Kara’s parents divorced and she remembers that she lashed out against her brother before they were separated. She regrets doing so and hopes to meet him again one day.
• Predator-Prey Friendship: Splode is a rat who is an honorary member of the Cookiedoe family, despite the latter being cats.
• Reformed, but Rejected: Downplayed in regards to Esperia, who wiped out Britain and killed Pep's mother in front of him. Nola doesn’t completely forgive her for her crimes, but is still willing to work with her to restore Pep’s mortal psyche.
• Regenerating Health:
  • Xepp has health regen by default due to his devil powers, though to balance this, most battles he's controllable in don't spawn healing gumdrops. In the final phase of Esperia's fourth fight, Pep activates devil powers without transforming in Xepp, giving him all of Xepp's powers including health regen.
  • Svoli's Empower action causes her to regenerate health and is the only source of healing she has during her only playable battle.
• Rush Boss: The Final Boss fight is against Xepp, who has the regen and increased damage output that he has as a player character. However, if the player can deal damage fast enough to overcome that regen, it shouldn’t take long to actually win.
• Seers: Member XII is a monkey who performs divinations on behalf of the Naxonite Cult. He predicts that Naxon will be defeated, but not by the Perseverance Union, which makes it significant when Pep defies the prophecy by destroying Naxon's phylactery and forcing the lich to return to Heldath.
• Sinister Swine: Highlord Naxon is the dictator of Britain, and his army/law enforcement mainly consists of dread pigs, who look like ghosts with pig heads.
• Situational Damage Attack: During Svoli’s battle against Esperia and the Blood Council, her idle attack launches arrows with a range of 5 tiles in the 8 cardinal directions and her running attack launches 3 arrows 9 tiles in front of her. The arrows do minimum damage at point-blank range, but do more damage the further they travel. In the final dungeon, Svoli's ghost gives this weapon to Pep to use against Xepp.
• Sole Survivor: At the end of the game, Pep is the only one alive in the remains of Britain, due to Esperia killing most of the population with her army and Xepp blowing up whatever is left.
• Split Personality: Pep has a separate personality, Xepp, who is a manifestation of Pep’s devil gene powers from his father. Normally, devil gene holders don’t develop separate personalities, but Pep is a special case because he also has an angel gene from his mother. Xepp states that the paradox of having devil and angel genes caused the angel gene to suppress the devil gene initially, but when Pep activated his devil gene in a state of emergency, his consciousness was split into three psyches, with Xepp being the Devil Psyche. The Angel Psyche cannot surface without causing the Laws of the Universe to erase Pep from existence.
• Status Buff: Svoli can use Empower on herself to increase her damage output and regen health for 12 seconds. This takes the place of the item button that other characters use.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Xepp is Pep's devil psyche, who is far more ruthless than his host, but also more powerful. Xepp can use all the same weapons as Pep, but he deals double damage and has Regenerating Health.
• You Shall Not Pass!: When Archbishop Saxxis corners the Perserverance Union in the Heartwood, Sped stays behind to hold off the enemy army by causing a huge explosion, taking himself out with much of the army.