Line #4 YMMV/ArmyMen


1	* AdaptationDisplacement: The series started on PC (and Game Boy Color) as real-time strategy games, before ''Army Men 3D'' hit the [=PlayStation=] and set the course for ''Sarge's Heroes''. Since most kids in the 90's angled towards the console installments, many fans don't even realize games like ''World War'' were drastically different on PC from their console counterparts as a result, or that the ''Air Attack'' games were complimented by ''Air Tactics''.
2	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Although the series was mostly hated by every professional reviewer in the world, they all agree that the music rocks.
3	** ''Army Men II's'' soundtrack was almost entirely made up of well-known classical pieces, and they worked really well.
4	* CriticalDissonance: Critics claim that most of the games are "ItsTheSameNowItSucks", while fans often have memorable experience playing the games when talked on. That is, until 3DO's bankruptcy, where starting from ''Sarge's War'', the games became universally despised by critics and fans alike.
5	* DemonicSpiders: Flamethrower troops. Since the threat of fire goes both ways towards Sarge as they do towards any other troops, they can kill you in a second flat even at full health.
6	* EnjoyTheStorySkipTheGame: The cutscenes in the ''Sarge's Heroes'' games are way more entertaining than the gameplay itself, owing to Jim Cummings [[ActingForTwo talking to himself]] for most of the cutscenes and the gags and early CGI being more than a little reminiscent of early Creator/MainframeEntertainment cartoons of the 1990's.
7	* FranchiseOriginalSin: The ''Army Men'' series has always had moments of [[SurprisinglyCreepyMoment surprisingly dark and creepy moments in it]] (e.g. the GameOver scenes, the level in ''Sarge’s Heroes'' where you fight giant insects, the damage done to various army men (including straight up melting), and the entirety of the ''World War'' spin-off), but they were balanced out by a mostly charming and cheesy tone. ''Sarge’s War'', however, stripped the majority of the cheese out for a DarkerAndEdgier tone, causing long time fans to be turned off because of said new tone.
8	* ItsTheSameNowItSucks: The most common complaint about the ''Army Men'' games is how little differences there are in gameplay from game to game. Every shooter is in third-person with auto-aim and strafing but no diagonal movement.
9	* MoralEventHorizon: Lord Malice, the BigBad of ''Sarge's War'' [[spoiler: set off a bomb during the peace treaty signing, that would have ended the war, while killing the leaders of both factions, Bravo Company and even Vikki. All just so he could continue the fighting.]]
10	* {{Narm}}: ''Sarge's War's'' complete lack of humor and the over-the-top darkness of its cutscenes can be '''very''' difficult for some players to take seriously especially since in the actual gameplay, Sarge will still crack rather bad jokes just like he does in the other games [[MoodWhiplash even during the most inappropriate moments]]. Double points for the third level where after the cutscene where all of his friends die, he goes from having borderline PTSD to making a comment about how ''"The fat lady is here, and this time she '''isn't''' singing!"'' ruining what would have otherwise been a [[PlayerPunch heartwrenching moment]].
11	* PolishedPort: The Nintendo 64 and Sega Dreamcast ports of ''Sarge's Heroes'' may not be 100% authentic to the PC and [=PlayStation=] versions and lack the CGI cutscenes, but generally look and play better thanks to the reworks the game got. On the flip side with ''Sarge's Heroes 2'', every version between [=PS1=], [=PS2=] and N64 are both similar and drastically different, yet the gist of the game is intact across all three platforms impressively enough.
12	* PowerUpLetDown: The various weapons in ''Green Rogue'' would be neat -- if they didn't take away your LaserSight. Without it, good luck even hoping to properly aim at most enemies except for vehicular boss fights. This makes grabbing more of the default rifle to power it up ''much'' more useful in the stages themselves.
13	* ScrappyMechanic: In ''Green Rogue'' on the [=PS1=], the game plays about what you'd expect for a shoot-em-up style game. The [=PS2=] version is an ''auto-scroller'', meaning whether you move or not, the game's going to force you along at all times, which gets really bad when the [[CameraScrew angled camera]] makes it easier to hit Tan soldiers up close rather than far away -- and more likely to get their item drops scrolled off the bottom of the screen as a result.
14	* {{Sequelitis}}: Oh so very much. After ''Air Attack 2'', the series went downhill ''fast''.
15	** ''Green Rogue'' is a bare minimum for a scrolling shoot-em-up, with ugly graphics, awkwardly long levels, and a SchizophrenicDifficulty that can kill you on a dime. It's often held as one of the weakest games in the series prior to the utter shift below.
16	** ''Sarge's War'' was needlessly DarkerAndEdgier as the "final" tale of Army Men, with the gameplay still sticking to the same auto aim and shoot formula with sparser and smaller levels as the game goes on.
17	** ''Major Malfunction'' features no returning character, again reusing the same auto aim and shoot gameplay, and even worse ArtShift.
18	** ''Soldiers of Misfortune'', the absolute last game bearing the ''Army Men'' name, alienated the fanbase by not only having no returning characters, but instead making the protagonist a shrunken little kid made worse by the sudden ArtShift towards a {{Disneyesque}} style, making it an InNameOnly ''Army Men'' game if not for the presence of plastic armies and still being a shooter platformer.
19	* TooBleakStoppedCaring: ''Sarge's War'' became too [[DarkerAndEdgier dark and edgy]] for its own good, abandoning the cheesiness and charm of the earlier games in favor of a WarIsHell tone [[spoiler:complete with a DownerBeginning and feelings of VengeanceFeelsEmpty from Sarge at the end.]]
20	* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: In ''Sarge’s War'', the character of [[spoiler:Lord Malice/Major Gooding is built up to be a TragicVillain and a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds because Sarge left him to die after Gooding and Sarge’s platoon walked into an ambush]]. One problem: [[spoiler:Gooding literally fell into a place (a kitchen sink) where Sarge couldn’t hear or see him, not to mention that Sarge was in the middle of a firefight and distracted to begin with.]] It doesn’t help that [[spoiler:Lord Malice literally betrayed the Tan Nation, who helped him recover, by blowing them up as well just to kill Sarge and keep the war going.]]

Context YMMV / ArmyMen