The Rave Heart series consists of the game Rave Heart and its various spin-offs, all of which were developed by Starmage.
The Galaxy of Xerxes consists of four sectors of allied planets, with the ruler of Planet Erra serving as the representative of the galaxy as a whole. Unfortunately, this alliance is fragile due to the conflicting interests of the governments and races of the various planets, with the second civil war being the focus of Rave Heart. Since the galaxy is so big, there are also smaller battles to be fought in the various spin-off games that don't necessarily involve the fate of the entire galaxy, but they serve to flesh out the setting in other ways.
Games in the series include:
This series contains examples of the following:
- Aesop Amnesia: In Rave Heart, the Archlight Facility tried to turn humans into cyborgs by using robots to capture and convert them only to lose control of the robots. Unfortunately, they still enact risky projects to enhance humanity even after many of their scientists are arrested, as shown in Astral Awakening where they tried to revive an birdman-looking corpse, who turned out to be a murderous Astral Demon. To their credit, they did make sure the CKA was stationed at their facility in case of emergency, but they underestimated the Astral Demon's power and many of the scientists and CKA agents were killed.
- Alternative Calendar: In the Galaxy of Xerxes, the calendar's zeroth year is the year of the first war against invaders from Ursula. The games use After Xerian War (AXW) to denote year numbers, and there's Before Galactic Invasion (BGI) for the years before the first Xerian war too. Strangely, BGI years aren't counted like negative numbers.
- Crapsack World:
- Kardel, a planet in Sector 3 of the Xerxian Galaxy, is in a post-apocalyptic state due to a devastating volcano eruption, resulting in poverty and crime. The Star-Raider pirates have more influence there than the actual representative of Sector 3.
- Niredia, a planet in Sector 1, is a more subtle example of this. While the leadership is more organized than the Space Pirates of Kardel, the Draconians still formed a Social Darwinist society where the strongest of their race is obeyed without question, which enables warmongering megalomaniacs like Count Vorakia Estuuban to gain a foothold in taking over the galaxy.
- Disciplines of Magic:
- Psychic powers include telekinetic movement of objects and telepathy to read and control minds. Errans are normally the only species with this power, but Count Vorakia Estuuban managed to give himself psychic powers by draining High King Arcturo's ether.
- Hex magic is more occult themed and can burn enemies with hellfire, drain life, sacrifice one's own blood for power, and inflict various status effects. This is usually exclusive to the Farian species, though the human Dark Arcana Clan once practiced Hex magic too, with Sedrick as one of the few remaining human Hex users.
- In Esper Unleashed, Aether is the combination of psychic and Hex powers. In gameplay, Axephus has access to stronger versions of traditional psychic and Hex skills, though he has more of the former because he's more familiar with those as an Erran.
- Evilutionary Biologist:
- Reverend Sergio and the order of the Lord of Divinity want to forcibly evolve everyone in the galaxy of Xerxes in the belief that this will bring them closer to their deity, making this an unusual example that is both obsessed with scientific progress and religion.
- The HEAL Corporation wants to push the limits of the Erran race's psionic powers. In Rave Heart, they create Klein using the DNA of powerful Ciphers, but this causes his body to become unstable and risks him dying in childbirth. In Esper Unleashed, they kidnap Axephus in order to painfully splice Farian DNA to his own to give him Aether powers.
- The Archlight Facility laments that humans have no special traits compared to other species in the galaxy, which is why they want to turn humans into cyborgs to give them an edge. To this end, they attempt to kidnap people by using robots. In Astral Awakening, they tone down their methods, but they still tried to revive an unknown alien corpse in order to figure out how to grant humans immortality, only for that corpse to slaughter everyone in the building.
- Fun with Acronyms: Harnessing Ether Around Life (HEAL) is a corporation that seeks to genetically modify Errans to find ways to increase the species' psionic powers. Ironically, despite their benign-sounding acronym, they are willing to perform painful experiments to achieve their goals, which is the opposite of healing..
- Genius Loci: Vismel and Aldebaran are planets that have their own consciousness. The latter planet guides Ser Herdinon and the Farseen to a hidden ancient city so they can hide from Tarkalia Village's intolerant church.
- Little Bit Beastly: Kunians are humanoids with cat ears that tend to live on Planet Vismel and Planet Yurielle.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Draconians are the natives of Niredia, with their stronger members looking like western dragons and their weaker members looking like lizardmen.
- Pilgrimage: Kunians have the Calline tradition, where their 20 year olds go on a soul-searching journey to find their purpose and bring honor to their people.
- The Social Darwinist: Niredia's culture is based on a hierarchy of strength and considers Klingon Promotion to be normal. Count Vorakia Estuuban considers the rest of the galaxy to be weak for rejecting this ideology and for not going along with his plan to invade Ursula. It's implied that this ideology is partially due to the planet's harsh environment, which would encourage a survival-of-the-fittest mentality.
- Space Pirate: The Star Raiders are a criminal organization that operates all over the galaxy of Xerxes. Additionally, their leader Sharky and several of their higher ranking members wear pirate captain hats.
- Totalitarian Gangsterism: The Star-Raiders are a group of Space Pirates that rule over Planet Kardel with an iron fist while running a drug ring.
- Winged Humanoid: Tellians are a race from the Ursula Constellation, and they look like angels.