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!!Subjective tropes to the series as a whole:

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Chao was pretty well liked in the second game, but quickly became the most popular of the main characters in the third game due to having the most personality out of the four.
* PlayTheGameSkipTheStory: Some players find the story to not be very well-written, but most agree the actual gameplay elements are very well done.

!!Subjective tropes in Distorted Travesty:

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
** The BGM for Black Rock Fortress and the overworld BGM after [[spoiler:The Darkness takes over]]. Also, every single battle theme.
** Special mention should go to "[[http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/86969 Earthbones]]", the boss music for any ClimaxBoss, most particularly Necrobane and the Shroud Lord.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4R_OWbbmN4 The Primary Memory]]. Kickass music to go along with the BestLevelEver.
* BestBossEver:
** The final boss. It may not be as hard as the boss before it, but it is much more epic. Not to mention the hacker battle between Jeremy and Hexor going on at the same time that keeps messing with the stage and Jerry's stats.
** [[spoiler: Copy X]] also qualifies, with brilliant music and challenging but manageable attacks.
* BestLevelEver:
** The final level, due to your EleventhHourSuperpower.
** Metropolis is also pretty great, due to giving you the [[VideoGame/MegaManX X Buster]] and containing almost nothing but Mega Man shout-outs.
* DifficultySpike: Black Rock Fortress. Full stop. And it only gets worse from there...
* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments:
** After Jerry has a PoorCommunicationKills moment:
--->'''[[DeadpanSnarker Jeremy]]:''' Failed diplomacy check.
** The constant banter between Jeremy and [[spoiler:Hexor]] in the final battle.
** After Jerry has his InternalMonologue at the end of the game, Jeremy breaks the dramatic mood by saying "You suck at monologues."
** The Demon Cursor boss fight. Tough as it is, you're still fighting a possessed Windows mouse cursor flinging windows and assaulting you with text while epic orchestral music plays in the background. And just to make things more ridiculous, Jeremy slaps a picture of an anime girl surrounded by sheep onto the background to mess with Jerry.
* GoddamnedBats: Each area has some kind of them, for example, the Hideout has Aero Scanners. {{Conversed}} with the 'Moles' (falling drills) of the Mega Man area.
* NightmareRetardant:
** The goofy enemies prevent the first Distortion from being a full-blown BleakLevel.
** [[spoiler:The Distortion Reckoning would be [[NightmareFuel the stuff of nightmares]] if it weren't for the humorous banter exchanged by Jerry and Hexor for the entire level]].
* ScrappyMechanic: For some, it's the CorridorCubbyholeRun mechanic of the Secured Data Segment. There are colored wheels throughout the rooms that all have the same color. When the timer on the wheels runs out, they switch to the next color in sequence, and if Jerry isn't inside a zone of the matching color, he takes heavy damage. The below-mentioned "Think and act fast" map is a prime source of frustration, due to the extremely short wheel timers of that particular map.
* SequelDifficultySpike: Far fewer mistakes are allowed than in the previous games. Couple this with the fact that Jerry and Claire have smaller arsenals than their previous appearances, and Distorted Travesty 3 might just be the toughest game in the trilogy. The game also doesn't hand out healing stations at the start of every room.
* ThatOneBoss: The Quick Time Distorter, Necrobane, [[PlatformBattle Ultimate Phalanx]], the [[spoiler: Shroud Lord]], and any boss on Distorted.
* ThatOneLevel:
** '''The Black Rock Fortress''', a MarathonLevel and a DifficultySpike all in one.
** The map titled "Think and act fast" in the Secured Data Segment. It takes CorridorCubbyholeRun up to eleven, and if you die, you have to start the entire thing ''all over again''. "You have to be quick" a while ago was bad enough, but this... Additionally, odds are you are short on healing items due to the [[TheWarSequence plenty]] of [[EliteMooks tough enemies]] before. Have fun warping out and doing the last few already hard rooms again.
** The Spire of Forgotten Souls is brutal even by the BonusDungeon standards. Normally, if you die, you get to restart at the beginning of the level. Not in the Spire! You get kicked back to the beginning of a five-level set, and [[PlatformHell the slightest mistake leads to certain disaster]]. [[FakeDifficulty Have fun doing the first 3-4 levels dozens of times just to get to the part that's actually giving you trouble]]! Oh, and the whole thing's a TimedMission to top it off.
** The InterfaceScrew room in Distortion Windows. The caption says that you're going to hate the author for it, and he's absolutely right. The screen rotates left and right as you move, easily reaching a 90-degree angle and beyond, while the game window (you get kicked back to Windowed Mode if you're on full-screen) moves left and right along with it. Add to that a switch hunt (one of which is guaranteed to end up off-screen and unseeable thanks to the screen rotation,) bottomless pits, lots and lots of enemies that can't be hurt by anything but one element, and the whole "guiding a mouse cursor to move windows to use as platforms" gimmick present throughout the level (while the cursor is rock-stupid and will almost always grab the window you don't want it too,) and it's nigh impossible to finish the room without wanting to punch the author in the face. Right after your neck stops hurting.
* ThatOneSidequest: Getting the skill crystals in the {{Unexpected Shmup Level}}s requires you to be ''really'' good at BulletHell games (''Franchise/TouhouProject in particular.) If you aren't? Well tough shit.
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!!Subjective tropes in The Sequel To The Prequel:

* EvenBetterSequel: Claire is far more mobile and maneuverable than Jerry, and the controls are greatly simplified and streamlined (while the previous game had so many buttons that you couldn't map them all to a controller, which is kind of a problem for a NintendoHard action-platformer.)
* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: Claire [[spoiler:cheering up and motivating Jerry]] at the end of the game.
* NightmareFuel: THE VIRUS! Especially in the updated 1.0.3 version.
* SequelDifficultySpike: Especially due to the RPGElements being cut and the level design having a much heavier emphasis on [[PlatformHell platforming]].
* ThatOneBoss: The Twin Bloom. Dear gods, the Twin Bloom.
* ThatOneLevel: Almost all of the final levels, most definitely.

!!Subjective tropes in Saved Game:

* AngstWhatAngst: Nobody dwells long on what happened inside the last nightmare gate [[spoiler:[[PsychologicalHorror which is a recollection of]] [[AbusiveParents Claire's childhood]]]]. Justified though, since [[spoiler:Claire]] has had enough time to cope with it and the other characters were already aware of it.
* BestBossEver: The final boss, CHAOS Warmaster, is extremely difficult, but highly praised by players who manage to get there. It's fast-paced, with epic music, the Warmaster is unpredictable but fair, and there are no gimmicks to trip you up.
* BreatherBoss: After the utter hell that is the Weapons Factory, the next boss the game throws at the player is [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros a giant Blargg]], who is significantly easier to deal with than what you just went through.
* ContinuityLockOut: Many plot points and references don't make much sense if the player hasn't completed the previous two games in the series.
* DemonicSpiders: CHAOS Rocketeers, which have extremely damaging and highly accurate attacks (one of which can't be dashed through), and zip around in the sky chaotically, making it very hard to hit them. They also usually appear in pairs, and God help you if there's a Healing Bot with them as well.
* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments:
** If you fall to your death enough times in the Koopa Jumping segment of Nightmare Gate A, Claire starts going on a rant for your next several attempts about what happens to the characters when they fall down BottomlessPits.
** Similarly, in the final room of Nightmare Gate E, after a few deaths Jerry will fill the screen with a WallOfText saying that he's going to force you to die again, just because.
** Both Claire and Jerry have a humorous reaction to falling through a FakePlatform in [[spoiler:the Vault]]. It'll likely catch the player off-guard as well.
--->'''Claire''': That was cheap!
** The entire group taking the wind out of [[spoiler:Hexor's]] sails by simply ignoring all of his taunts and talking about inane things over him.
** In Sigma's Fortress, Bit from ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' shows up to stop Jerry. Jerry isn't worried though, saying that Bit was a very easy boss. Later, Byte shows up to "do what Bit could not". Jerry's reaction: "BUT YOU WERE EVEN EASIER!"
** In Gate 5, in the Maridia section, most players' hatred of water levels is {{Lampshaded}} by the AltText saying "INCOMING WATER LEVEL!! Oh god, run away from the horrible water level!!", in a room that begins rapidly filling with water.
** In Gate 6, when the program begins showing scenes from the protagonists' past, one of them is Claire from when she first fell in love with Jerry. When this one pops up, Claire spams "Nope!" messages all over the screen to prevent anyone from seeing what she said back then.
** In the Discombobulated, there's one room where the characters have to use [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall their own text boxes]] as platforms. Most of them do this with inane blather, but Chao spams messages that just say "Bunnies!"
** The Construction Zone has a CHAOS Spidermech that's fought outside. Spidermechs have the ability to reverse gravity and crawl on the ceiling. This... doesn't work so well when the Spidermech is outside, as it just [[EpicFail flies off into the sky and vanishes]]. [[spoiler:Several full levels later, [[BrickJoke the same Spidermech falls back out the sky]] and explodes in front of the Magical Castle.]]
* GoodBadBugs:
** In town, there's a certain NPC that always starts a little cutscene when you talk to him, instead of just displaying a text box like normal. If Jerry dashes past him, and you press up, you'll pause and stand still mid-dash for the cutscene (with SpeedEchoes still on screen), then resume your dash where it let off when it ends. Guess [[TalkingIsAFreeAction talking really is a free action]].
** The Geemers in the ''Metroid'' Gate have the same glitch they had in the original ''VideoGame/Metroid1'': they get stuck tumbling in mid-air if the platform they're on is destroyed. They have a similar silly animation when moving down slopes, though they don't get stuck there. This looks hilarious, so Zephyr never bothered to fix it.
* HilariousInHindsight: The Medusa Heads in Gate 3 say "Senpai noticed me!" when hitting the player, which is eerily prescient of Dusa from ''VideoGame/{{Hades}}''.
* TearJerker: [[spoiler:The standard ending.]]
* ThatOneBoss: There are a few, but some really stick out above the rest.
** [[spoiler:The Abomination. A brutally long fight involving repeated attacking of hard-to-hit weak spots, all while having to dodge loads of projectiles in a very small space. To make matters worse, the Eight Instruments have to be activated at all times to be able to damage it. If more than two get disabled, you have to go up and reactivate them, and this tends to happen a lot.]]
** [[spoiler:The second-to-last boss is another fight with Hex, and it's a doozy. He's constantly changing the mechanics of the fight, summoning loads of minions to harass you, covering the inactive character with a damaging electric shield, and flying around erratically to make hitting him extra annoying in the second half. As if that wasn't enough, as the fight goes on he starts disabling your ability sets, limiting your options even further.]]
* ThatOneLevel: The Water Temple in Gate 2. It is a labyrinthine dungeon full of complex water-shifting puzzles that can take a very long time to fully wrap your head around. Reading the Dev Comment in the skull fish enemy scan reveals that this is exactly what was aimed for.
** The CHAOS Weapons Factory, full stop. It begins with a stealth section with tight enemy placement that requires the player to finish each room without detection in order to earn some items (not to mention getting detected certainly means death via [[DemonicSpiders CHAOS Seeker]]. After that is a demanding gauntlet of bosses, puzzles, and rooms full of DemonicSpiders that will most certainly kill the player over and over. It also makes heavy use of Jerry's [[ScrappyMechanic Strike Chain]].