YMMV / Commander Keen

• Angst? What Angst?: Molly adjusts to the weirdness of being on another planet (and the weirdness of being rescued by her 8-year-old charge) amazingly well.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: The infamously canceled mobile game. Fans of the series were livid to find out that this was the new direction the license-holders wanted to go, and those who were most likely to play mobile games generally hadn't heard of the series at all.
• Awesome Music:
  • The song heard in the desert-located levels in Episode 4: "You've got-to-eat-your veg-ta-bleeeessss...."
  • From the same game we have the sinister sounding "Too Hot to Handle", which is used in half of the levels.
• Demonic Spiders: Robo Red in Armageddon Machine. He's a large and invincible robot with massive firepower, making it highly dangerous to go through any area with him.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Dopefish from Secret of the Oracle is a very interesting case as it seems to be more iconic to game developers than to the players themselves. A lot of games contain some sort of Shout-Out to the Dopefish, and an official site keeps tabs on all these appearances, as well as including fanart of the creature.
  • The janitor of the Council Members from the same game as the Dopefish. In the game proper he only appears for a quick Your Princess Is in Another Castle! gag at the end of the Brutal Bonus Level, but many fanmods give him a larger role, from being one of Keen's close allies to even being the protagonist of his own games.
• Even Better Sequel: Secret of the Oracle and its successors The Armageddon Machine and Aliens Ate My Babysitter are considered the best and most iconic of the Keen games, with its more expansive level designs and superior graphics.
• Fan Nickname: At one point, Billy's pet Yorp was often called "Norp" in mods and fangames. Tom Hall in the Keen FAQ confirmed that its name is indeed Spot, and the name Norp has largely fallen out of favor.
• Fanon Discontinuity: The 2001 Game Boy game was disliked by fans of the original games, and the 2019 mobile game got it even worse, which has contributed to its cancellation.
• Goddamn Bats: The Vorticon children in the second and third game. They race around the level at breakneck speeds and jump around in erratic patterns. They can't kill you, but touching one stuns you for several seconds and they rarely appear alone.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Billy Blaze is the grandson of William "B.J." Blazkowicz, which makes the scene of B.J. learning that Anya and him are going to be parents in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus all the more heartwarming.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The vacant grin and huge eyes of the Dopefish terrified some younger gamers. *cough* The bouncing mushrooms with insane faces from IV were also a bit... disconcerting.
  • Boobus Tuber, a giant potato with a lot of eyes that is several times bigger than Keen.
  • Imagine being out of ammo in the first game, and you're running away from a Garg. You come to a pit and so you jump over it, fully expecting the Garg to fall into the pit. Imagine to your horror that Gargs can jump over pits and continue chasing you...
• Tainted by the Preview: The announcement at E3 2019 that Commander Keen would be getting a reboot... as a free-to-play mobile game with unconventional flick to jump and attack controls and (generally considered) ugly character design was not well-received at all. Good luck finding anyone with anything positive to say about it. Fortunately, the game would never actually be released.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Many people were blown away by the smooth and fast animation, at a time when PC graphics lacked any kind of acceleration.

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