* AnticlimaxBoss: When conquering [[spoiler:Asgar's castle]] in ''Ancient Blood'' Jinnai alerts you to a monster which guards it. As it turns out, [[spoiler:it's just [[TeamPet Ronak]], and he's very happy to see you again]].
* ContestedSequel: While the fans agree that neither game is bad, you'll find people who are very disappointed or bored by everything the second game changed from the first one. You'll also find many people who think it surpassed even the highest expectations they had. And some who think that both games are good, but have their flaws.
** Some fans feel it's an EvenBetterSequel: ''Reign of Blood'' was good, but ''Ancient Blood'' was amazing in scope and had a much more complex and dramatic story, not to mention many refined mechanics.
** Another part of the fanbase feels that the sequel is actually lacking in scope. ''Ancient Blood's'' plot is very linear in comparison to ''Reign of Blood's''. Your objective always remains the same: Assemble the tablet pieces and solve the mystery involving Pharaoh Ustra. Some fans feel that conquering the castles, getting the dungeon keys and beating the dungeons are just filler to reach that goal without actually adding anything to the story. In contrast, ''Reign of Blood'' requires the player to figure out what needs to be done step by step. The fact that the sequel lacks major boss battles – like [[spoiler:Molona and Abraxas]] in the first game – adds to the game having a very different pace.
* DifficultySpike: In ''Reign of Blood'', The Crypt of Tradan can provide this if the player goes there as soon as the story allows it, without doing any sidequests or exploring other parts of the map. Especially since this is the first storyline dungeon where none of the random encounters can be sucked for blood. Blood potions become a necessity to not run out of mana points.
* EnsembleDarkhorse: Celene in ''III'' was probably intended as just another generic AlwaysChaoticEvil vampire like countless others in the setting, primarily there to show that [[ReplacementGoldfish Asgar has become shallow in his love]], kick off his later character arc and to fill a party slot until [[spoiler: Valnar's resurrection]]. She is only playable for some 30-50% or so of the game and becomes a borderline case of WhatHappenedToTheMouse afterwards. But her gameplay usefulness, unexpected HiddenDepths moments, harrowing FreudianExcuse and [[spoiler: the unncessarily tragic and easily preventable [[DrivenToSuicide circumstances of her exit from the story]]]] have earned her a surprising amount of fans, many of whom petitioned the dev for a way to avoid [[spoiler: her PlotlineDeath]].
* FridgeLogic: In order to resurrect Alaine, Asgar needs the blood of a human who slept with a vampire. So he finds Valnar. Why exactly couldn't he just sleep with a random human and use their blood? A throwaway line in ''Reign of Blood'' mentions that this human must also be [[ThePowerOfLove in love]] with that vampire, but by ''Ancient Blood'' this doesn't seem to apply anymore.
* GameBreaker: In the second game, Mirror is a spell that makes you immune to all but physical attacks and reflects all skills back to the attacker. It's balanced, as it's an expensive spell. But then there's a helmet which provides a '''permanent''' mirror state. If a character wears this in combination with another item that makes them immune to physical attacks, they become literally invincible.
* JerkassWoobie: Celene in the third game. She's a ClingyJealousGirl whose dialogue mostly consists of being mean to Alaine, and also an evil vampire who is evidently content to accept the enslavement of humanity under her race, even at the risk of its complete eventual extinction. [[spoiler: But her backstory as a SexSlave in what can only be described as a "torture brothel for vampires" is absolutely horrific and goes a long way towards explaining her obsession with strength and not letting anyone get the better of her, and ultimately she ends up betrayed by all people she trusted and is DrivenToSuicide when the man she thought loved her shows absolutely NoSympathy for her suffering. Depending on the ending, she may end up revived and returned to human ''only so that she can be tortured for the rest of eternity by that same man''.]]
* PlayerPunch:
** The Elras kill [[spoiler:Ronak the Minotaur]] off and throw his head at your feet near the end of ''Ancient Blood''.
** At several plot points in ''Ancient Blood'', if you have taken a fourth ally, they will instantly die. While all are easily replaceable, it's still pretty mean if you have gotten attached to having them in your group.
* ScrappyMechanic:
** The third game has been criticized for its unusual approach to accessing the MultipleEndings. Basically, in an odd inversion of LastSecondEndingChoice, which (single one) of the three non-BadEnd endings you can get is determined by dialogue choices made right in the game's first scene, with later decisions, difficulty level, KarmaMeter and such having absolutely no impact on the matter. The game does not signpost this and so many players assumed the initial decisions were purely for flavor, with some learning halfway into their run that they couldn't get the kind of ending they had hoped for unless they restarted.
** The handling of the Humanity mechanic is also subject to criticism. Rather than, as in the previous games or otherwise typical in [=RPGs=], being a KarmaMeter that you dedicate a full playthrough with associated storyline and gameplay changes to, there is explicitly only an evil campaign, with Humanity basically serving as an "evil deeds ammunition counter", allowing you to get away with more atrocities without getting the BadEnd. It does not help that the resident CardCarryingVillain is our VillainProtagonist this time around, and the Humanity options often have him act out of character (read: mercifully), while the whole main story is about how he's increasingly becoming ''more'' cruel and unhinged than ever before. The dev has started taking steps to address this, beginning with giving high Humanity a greater impact on the endings.
* SidetrackedByTheGoldSaucer: The sheer number of sidequests in ''Ancient Blood'', the treasure maps which encourage the player to discover secret locations on the world map and get all the goodies in those dungeons, as well as the necessity to collect as many [[OurSoulsAreDifferent souls]] as possible over and over again make it possible to reach a really high level without ever entering a single storyline-related dungeon. The increasingly stronger attacks on your castles are the only thing that motivates the player to deal with, you know, the war with the insane mages and assembling the stone tablet and all. But otherwise you can TakeYourTime.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter:
** Nyria is the protagonist of ''II'''s prologue, which tells us about her life, motivation and personality in great, some might even say [[ProlongedPrologue agonizing]], detail, starting all the way from her childhood, has a [[ItsPersonal personal]] [[CainAndAbel connec]][[YouKilledMyFather tion]] to two of the main antagonists ''and'', less directly, the playable vampire trio, and is given her own love interest and a mystery to solve regarding her DisappearedDad. However, as the game goes on, she only appears again a handful of times in brief interludes before eventually being all but written out of the story entirely, not getting to participate herself in any of the events established as related to her. Her story had much more potential than being a DecoyProtagonist and providing exposition from the Holy Warrior Clan's point of view. Especially since with the fourth party slot, she could have easily become an EleventhHourRanger. Sure, she suffers from CantCatchUp by that point compared to the vampires, but nothing that could not be fixed with some LeakedExperience or an EmergencyTransformation. The ''Everlasting Blood'' GameMod for ''II'' appears to exist in large parts to address these criticisms, fully integrating her into the game as the fourth core party member the ProlongedPrologue seemed to set her up as, with all the OddFriendship situations you'd expect from essentially a human KnightInShiningArmor adventuring with a bunch of vampires who are ''at best'' HeroicNeutral.
** [[spoiler: Nyria is wasted ''again'' in the third game, which initally sets her up as a BigGood who is a lot more powerful and proactive this time around, only to then do a switcheroo and subject her to DemonicPossession by a different entity which overrides her personality and remains in place for nearly the entire narrative]].
* UnintentionallySympathetic: In the main games, Aysha is basically treated as a HateSink by the narrative due to the WasItAllALie situation with her and Valnar. However, she was a SexSlave to a ''very'' scummy master and besides deceiving Valnar, all the evil deeds we see from her occur only after [[NiceJobBreakingItHero the protagonists accidentally shatter her mind]], making the question of her villainy before that an AmbiguousSituation. Thus, it's quite easy to view her as more of a sympathetic victim. This is in fact the stance the ''Everlasting Blood'' AdaptationExpansion GameMod for ''II'' takes. That said, according to spinoff material, she followed the standard AlwaysChaoticEvil characterization of vampires in the setting even before meeting Valnar.
* {{Wangst}}: Valnar doesn't take Aysha's death and his new existence as a vampire well. Parodied in ''Vampires Dawn III'', where Asgar finds a book entitled ''[[Literature/TheSorrowsOfYoungWerther The Sorrows of Young Valnar]]'' and wonders who would read such melodramatic drivel. [[BlackComedy He approves of the fact that Young Valnar is suffering at least, though.]]
* TheWoobie: Alaine, at the latest by the beginning of the third game. She has become a ShellShockedVeteran after ''decades'' of waging (and losing) a vampire war against Asgar to prevent TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, repeatedly forced to [[ShootTheDog compromise and betray her beliefs and morals]], left all alone, hopeless and terribly missing her boyfriend. Yet she mostly just seems tired and stoically fights on. Doesn't become any better as the game progresses. First she is subjected to ColdBloodedTorture by her old Elras enemies involving such lovely things as ''repeatedly ripping off her arm and reattaching it'', then she becomes magically enslaved to the service of her evil ex-lover, who frequently abuses her, verbally and sometimes physically. The endings have it in for her, too. [[spoiler: Out of four endings, three are incredibly cruel to her. She can either end up turned into a BabyFactory SexSlave to her ex-lover simply because he wants to torment her, be the SoleSurvivor of the party and become a severely traumatized EmptyShell whose mind is trapped in past flashbacks, or finally find her happy ending with the love of her life [[YankTheDogsChain only to be murdered by her ex in her sleep the following night]]. The GoldenEnding is the sole conclusion where poor Alaine can catch anything resembling a break. Slightly ameliorated by a later patch, where the nighttime murder in the Asgar Solo ending does not take place if the player has accumulated a high Humanity score.]]
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