History YMMV / ZapDramatic

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS2XY5aWu9Y "The Old Soul, Again"]], which is used in the opening scene of ''Sir Basil Pike''.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Ted is considered either an [[SoBadItsGood unintentionally amusing character]] or [[AuthorTract an annoying character who spouts the views of the author off]].

** Duke Crabtree seems to have been intended as one. [[UnpopularPopularCharacter He's actually]] [[MisaimedFandom pretty popular]] among WebVideo/{{Retsupurae}}'s fanbase, though.

** From ''Ambition'': Making terrorist threats is excusable as long if your judgment has been impaired by a traumatic experience.

* DarthWiki/MostAnnoyingSound:
** In Episode 1, Ted's footsteps always make a pounding sound, as if he's stomping on a wooden floor. It's particularly annoying because it happens with every step he takes, and he paces around a lot. Thankfully, it's fixed by the next episode.
** From episode 10, "OBJECTION, irrelevant."

* MostAnnoyingSound:

* EarWorm:
** The opening song from ''Move or Die''.
** The opening song to ''Ambition'', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLFVGwGQcB0Erik Satie's "Gnossienne No.1"]], as well.

*** Even if you completely went with the explanation that [[spoiler:Ted was under the effects of Paxwic, which caused him to do all the initial crazy things,]] he still acts like a complete jerk to you during the psychological profile, and then much later on will [[spoiler:kidnap you at gunpoint to force you to help him]], both of these happening while there's no excuse for Ted's behavior other than - as already demonstrated to everyone ''except'' Zap Dramatic - that he is completely pants-on-head loco.

** Ted. No matter what acts he commits (including attempted terrorism and multiple escapes from jail), we're supposed to believe he's an innocent victim being dragged through the dirt by his "evil" wife. There are two episodes that cement him as this:

*** Even if you completely went with the explanation that [[spoiler:Ted was under the effects of Paxwic, which caused him to do all the initial crazy things,]] he still acts like a complete jerk to you during the psychological profile. Later on he'll try to force you to help him at gunpoint saying he has nothing to lose. Both of these are while there's no excuse for Ted's behavior.
*** Episode 10. If you choose to [[spoiler: frame Ted]] instead of [[spoiler: Yale]], then [[spoiler: Duke]] will drive you to [[spoiler: Yale]]'s house so that you can tell him that [[spoiler: Rolf]] thinks it would be best for everyone if [[spoiler: Ted]] takes the fall. It is here that the game actually goes out of its way to shame you for it. ''Twice''. First, [[spoiler: Ted]] inexplicably appears in the car beside you (even though [[spoiler: he got caught not ten minutes earlier]]) and expresses his disappointment in you for "selling [him] out." Next, when you actually get to [[spoiler: Yale]]'s house and tell him the plan, he also expresses his disappointment in you and swears to have you disbarred. Then you turn around, and [[spoiler: Duke]] kills you. Game over.

** Duke Crabtree. We're apparently supposed to see him as an egotistical {{jerkass}} who is out to steal your job, but he appears to be far more competent than the player character. He'd probably be better-suited for the job. While we as the detective spend about half of Episode 6 sleeping (which is required, by the way), Duke is actually doing work. While interrogating Bridget, if you end the interrogation too early, Duke will helpfully inform the player that Bridget contradicted herself and tell us to go back and "nail her." When you are interrogating Bridget near Ted's cell, Duke will ask the valid question of why we are exposing the suspect to a known violent criminal. One possible response to this is to call Duke a meddling creep and then punch him in the face. This results in a game over, but the fact that the option is there in the first place clearly indicates that we're not supposed to like Duke. Duke ''does'' insult the player, but the attentive player should notice that Duke only insults you when you waste time, and [[spoiler: after you get a confession from Bridget]], he stops insulting you entirely and works with you to try and solve the case. Somewhat negated by the fact that [[spoiler: Duke actually becomes genuinely villainous in Episode 10. It is revealed that he is in on the plot to frame Ted Hadrup for murder, and then he hijacks your cab and takes you somewhere to kill you. However, he still qualifies because we're supposed to see him as villainous from the start even though he doesn't do anything particularly villainous before being revealed as EvilAllAlong.]]

** The player character in ''Sir Basil Pike Public School'' can become one of these due to the fact that the game assumes that you chose options that you may or may not have actually chosen. For example: You can get accused of encouraging Julia to prank Tammy by pretending to be Tariq, even if you try to stop her from doing it. Or, if you try to stop Tony from uploading the video of Julia, he'll still tell you later that you said it'd be funny.

*** Even if you completely went with the explanation that [[spoiler: Teds was under the effects of Paxwic which caused him to do all the initial crazy things]] he still acts like a complete jerk to you during the psychological profile. Later on he'll try to force you to help him at gunpoint saying he has nothing to lose. Both of these are while there's no excuse for Ted's behavior.

** In ''Sir Basil Pike Public School'', Janina becomes a rather blatant example of this trope in the last episode. For most of the story she's a side character who none of the other kids (or Website/YouTube commenters) particularly seem to like, though that doesn't stop the first episode devoting several minutes to her musical number. Throughout the game Janina is used to point out exactly where the player went wrong, without ever addressing all the spying Janina must be doing to know so much. Then in the last episode, despite having had minimal interaction with the other characters she suddenly helps resolve a massive argument that had threatened to tear the player character's friendship group apart, after which the storyline completely drops all the other characters and becomes entirely about her for its last third or so as it again makes the player feel stupid for worrying about Janina going missing after getting picked up by a mystery man. Unsurprising, as she is rumored to be based off of Gibson's daughter and is voiced by some relation of his.

** In episode 8 of ''Ambition'', Bridget {{wrongfully attribute|d}}s "Facts are the enemy of truth" to Cervantes, and even insults the player for picking one of the other choices. The quote is actually by [[Theatre/{{Man of La Mancha}} Dale Wasserman]], yet that isn't a choice...

*** However the Monty hall problem only works if Ted always picks doors with goats behind them. Which is not told to the player. Similarly, the KnightsAndKnaves puzzle Duke gives you can't be reliably solved when you only have his word to go on in explaining the setup in the first place.
** Another example from ''Sir Basil Pike''. On Wednesday, Tariq refers to runes as sacred stones. Actually runes are [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runes just letters]]. Certain runic symbols were considered to hold special meaning, but even then they would only be the sacred etchings that go ''on'' the stones, not the stones themselves.

---> '''slowbeef:''' "Don't you understand, it's a conspiracy to make it seem like Ted is crazy over, and over, and over again. He keeps threatening people's lives, but it's not his fault. Even though it ''absolutely fucking is'' every time."

** The opening song, Erik Satie's "Gnossienne No.1" [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLFVGwGQcB0]]

** Ted's case is also not helped by just the incredibly contrived lengths the games go to to make sure he gets off scot free, allowing him to come off as debatably being somewhere on the MarySue spectrum.

* MostAnnoyingSound:
** In Episode 1, Ted's footsteps always make a pounding sound, as if he's stomping on a wooden floor. It's particularly annoying because it happens with every step he takes, and he paces around a lot. Thankfully, it's fixed by the next episode.
** From episode 10, "OBJECTION, irrelevant."

** In ''Sir Basil Pike Public School'', Janina becomes a rather blatant example of this trope in the last episode. For most of the story she's a side character who none of the other kids (or YouTube commenters) particularly seem to like, though that doesn't stop the first episode devoting several minutes to her musical number. Throughout the game Janina is used to point out exactly where the player went wrong, without ever addressing all the spying Janina must be doing to know so much. Then in the last episode, despite having had minimal interaction with the other characters she suddenly helps resolve a massive argument that had threatened to tear the player character's friendship group apart, after which the storyline completely drops all the other characters and becomes entirely about her for its last third or so as it again makes the player feel stupid for worrying about Janina going missing after getting picked up by a mystery man. Unsurprising, as she is rumored to be based off of Gibson's daughter and is voiced by some relation of his.

** Helen is also pretty popular, mostly because of her two [[CrowningMomentOfFunny Crowning Moments of Funny]] (her [[AxCrazy behavior]] in Episode 5, and the unusual fixation on her [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness sumptuous]] pastries in Episode 9). Some also see her as the [[OnlySaneMan only sane woman]] in the world of Ambition, and the only character who reacts appropriately to the stupidity of everyone else in the game. They explain her meltdown in Episode 5 as a result of being pushed over the edge by all of the idiocy in the game.

** Yale's smile, too. Ever since Retsupurae gave it a ColbertBump, YouTube avatars depicting Yale smiling have become increasingly common, especially among the Retsupurae fanbase.

** Ted's psuedo-philosophical spiel in Episode 3 is a long flow of this due to the voice actor's forced attempt at a gruff voice, but a crowning moment that even caused slowbeef and Diabetus to burst out laughing is a certain point in the MindScrew visuals in which Ted's face is superimposed over Bridget's.

* NightmareFuel: Helen's scream in Episode 6 straddles the line between this and a narm-induced CrowningMomentOfFunny.

* HarsherInHindsight: In one of the Negotiator games that preceded this series, "The Suspicious Cop", making a romantic advance on said cop causes him to declare the (male) player character a sinner and murder him on the spot. At first this seems like a strange over-reaction, but when Ted became a CreatorsPet mouthpiece for Michael Gibson's Christian propaganda, the aforementioned incident started making an unfortunate amount of sense. It gets doubly so as well considering the backlash against PoliceBrutality like that in the real world later in TheNewTens, that eventually reached such a peak that some cops have been ambushed and killed by otherwise-law-abiding citizens simply for being associated with law enforcement.

** ''Sir Basil Pike Public School'' includes many cases where, despite being a game about bullying prevention, doesn't penalize you for making fun of a kid's speech impediment or helping someone prank another student, [[DoubleStandard indicating that it's fine when you do it]].

* HarsherInHindsight: In one of the Negotiator games that preceded this series, making a romantic advance on a cop causes him to declare the (male) player character a sinner and murder him on the spot. At first this seems like a strange over-reaction, but when Ted becomes a CreatorsPet mouthpiece for Michael Gibson's Christian propaganda, the aforementioned incident makes an unfortunate amount of sense.

*** Additionally, "because [I'm/he's/she's/it's] a [[spoiler:terrorist]]" seems to be becoming the Retsupurae fanbase's answer to AWizardDidIt. This one is arguably the biggest meme the games have produced so far, to the point that, as mentioned above, many people began to see it as a DiscreditedMeme rather quickly.

--> '''Angie:''' Yale, [[spoiler:I'm pregnant]]!
--> '''Yale:''' [[DullSurprise Oh.]]

--> ''(Player selects option "Calmly ask Duke why he has hijacked your taxi cab.")''
--> '''Duke:''' [[spoiler:Because I'm a terrorist!]]

** Syd in ''Move Or Die'', for being an asshole who tries to take money from a dead body [[InsaneTrollLogic because it's a sign from god to keep it out of the hands of the government]].

** The [[TimedMission clock]] in Episode 6 of ''Ambition''. It is of the kind where every action deducts a certain number of minutes from a time limit given to find a suspect. It is widely considered the ScrappyMechanic for [[YetAnotherStupidDeath several reasons]]:

* WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs: To the off-the-wall and extremely questionable decision-making, to the poorly-drawn character models, to Ted's incredibly bizarre (and somehow visible) fantasies, to talking mice and pretty much everything else about these games.

*** The spiel causes the two to joke about Ted being the (very) poor man's [[TheSilenceOfTheLambs Hannibel Lecter.]]

*** At one point, Ted mentions how the truth is like an onion, which brought obvious jokes about [[{{Film/Shrek}} a film about an ogre and his comparison on how ogres are like onions]] to the minds of Youtube commentors.

** Woody Allen's 1979 film ''Film/{{Manhattan}}'' also features a character with the first name of Yale, who also happens to be cheating on his wife.

* EightDeadlyWords:
** In ''Ambition'', everyone's either a jerk, delusional, in Rolf Klink's pocket, or all three, making emotional investment nearly impossible. Retsupurae and most Youtube commentators pretty much hate everyone; this even extends to ''the player character'', likely due to the things that are deemed the right decision [[MoralDissonance even when it really shouldn't be]].
** In ''Move Or Die'', Syd is an asshole whose moral and philosophical reasons for keeping the stolen money [[InsaneTrollLogic make no sense]], and Wilma despite continually advocating doing the right thing, had an affair with the mayor. With these in mind, it's particularly hard to ''care'' what happens to them because they are both not nice people.

* HilariousInHindsight: This game featured [[spoiler: a woman's ghost helping a lawyer solve her murder]] years before ''Franchise/AceAttorney''.

* EightDeadlyWords: In ''Ambition'', everyone's either a jerk, delusional, in Rolf Klink's pocket, or all three, making emotional investment nearly impossible. Retsupurae and most Youtube commentators pretty much hate everyone; this even extends to ''the player character'', likely due to the things that are deemed the right decision [[MoralDissonance even when it really shouldn't be]].

** Woody Allen's 1979 film ''[[Film/Manhattan Manhattan]]'' also features a character with the first name of Yale, who also happens to be cheating on his wife.