History YMMV / NearOrbitVanguardAlliance

* BadassNormal: Unlike say [[Franchise/{{Halo}} Master Chief]] or [[Franchise/MassEffect Shepard]], there was nothing remarkable about Kal before the game. He was just a marine officer chosen to be a SacrificialLion.

* GuideDangIt: Three of the bosses in the second game, and the final boss in the third game require rather unusual and non-intuitive things to be done to defeat them.
** The large Cybertooth is a LightningBruiser that has ''lots of health'', which either jumps onto you or swats you with its paw, inflicting lots of damage. You could normally take this kind of boss down by keeping your distance and inflicting DeathByAThousandCuts, but your map in this case consists of a few narrow walkways, leaving you no room to dodge its jump attacks. The only way to win is to leap onto a very narrow ledge that doesn't look like it can hold you, but it barely does. This neutralizes the Cyberttoth's jump attack, allowing you to dodge its paw swipes. As long as you don't misjudge your momentum and walk off that ledge, you can whittle the Cybertooth down with all your weapons.
** The Centaur fight is even more counterintuitive. The first time it appears, you do have room to maneuver and whittle it down, but Prometheus' voice tells you to duck into a Judger portal just before you can finish off the Centaur. Most players will be tempted to kill the Centaur before escaping through the portal, but doing so, reveals that the Overseer has taken complete control of your mind, and a NonStandardGameOver. If you duck into a portal instead, "Prometheus" reveals himself to have been your own mind finding a way to fight off the Overseer's MindRape attempt. You navigate a maze instead.
** The second Centaur fight gives you a NighInvulnerable enemy. You have to kill it by tossing a mine out a window, luring the Centaur to that window and detonating the mine. This makes the Centaur vulnerable to ''one'' type of weapon only. Use only that kind of weapon to take it down, then you have some time before the NighInvulnerable Centaur respawns. You have to lure it close to a mine again, detonate it to trigger a different vulnerability, and in that process, blow all your windows. This breaks you free of the Overseer's mental attack, after which Kal kills him.
* ManipulativeBastard: Maz'rah was manipulating Kal all along to lead shim to either a hairy situation that should have killed him, or to the Kharaak to be killed off.

* BadassNormal: Unlike say '[Franchise/{{Halo}} Master Chief]] or '[Franchise/MassEffect Shepard]], there was nothing remarkable about Kal before the game. He was just a marine officer chosen to be a SacrificialLion.

** The second Centaur fight gives you a NighInvulnerable enemy. You have to kill it by tossing a mine out a window, luring the Centaur to that window and detonating the mine. This makes the Centaur vulnerable to ''one'' type of weapon only. Use only that kind of weapon to take it down, then you have some time before the NighInvulnerable Centaur respawns. You have to lure it close to a mine again, detonate it to trigger a different vulnerability, and in that process, blow all your windows. This breaks you free of the Overseer's mental attack, after which Kal kills him.

* GuideDangIt: Three of the bosses in the second game, and the final boss in the third game require rather unusual and non-intuitive things to be done to defeat them.

* DemonicSpiders: Volterites rocket troopers and Psychers occupy this role in the second and third game. The first game has a very demonic spider, but it actually functions more like a WakeupCallBoss.
* GoddamnedBats: Spider like bugs in the first game. Cybertooths In the second and third game.