YMMV / Fuga: Melodies of Steel

• Accidental Aesop: As expressed by this Tumblr post, a major trait shared among the Berman antagonists is that, despite the major atrocities they commit and their lack of redeeming qualities, they have genuinely humanizing reasons for their behavior— the two old generals viewing war as a game and their troops as expendable pawns, Flam Kish being indoctrinated into the Berman Army and made completely subservient to their ideals, and Doktor Blutwurst's hatred of his own species stemming from an inferiority complex possibly resulting from anti-Felineko propaganda. The message to take from here may be that monsters are made rather than born, and that even those who instigate war and violence can just as much be victims of it themselves.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Malt's constant reminder that he's the oldest has led to some to believe that he says it as a coping mechanism to try and rationalize himself considering how quickly the world around him went to hell (as well as the implications that he might be aware of the previous timeline where he or one of his friends died using the Soul Cannon in the tutorial), or that he's tricking himself into believing that he's the most dependable one the others can always fall back on. The manga decides to Take a Third Option instead, treating his "I'm the oldest" line as a form of Survival/Madness Mantra that only got worse once the sequel's story got adapted.
• Aluminium Christmas Trees: For those who think the duck potty was a cute thing created just for the game, we hate to break it to you: they're real◊, and apparently, they're pretty common in Japan. Omaru!
• Angst Aversion: Though not quite to the level of full-on apathy, the Anyone Can Die elements of the game have turned off some folks from playing it, the Soul Cannon in particular being notorious for merely existing. This attitude has died down over time, however.
• Awesome Art: One area of the game that gets consistent praise is the artwork, whether that be the various CGs, the character portraits, the main key art by Nobuteru Yuki, or the end cards drawn by several guest artists that are well known in the kemono community. Even the 3D visuals manage to look decent and well animated, especially the Taranis itself and the various enemy tanks that stand in the crew's way.
• Awesome Music: Chikayo Fukuda returns to the Little Tail Bronx series along with her usual great sense of theming and composition. See here.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • While she isn't outright hated, Hanna is known to be one of the less popular kids overall, as while some do like her for being a sweet and kind Team Mom, others dislike her for being flat and uninteresting in comparison to the rest of the cast, along with lacking many of the relatable flaws that they have.^note Malt has a guilt and responsibility complex that directly impacts the second game's plot, Kyle is somewhat irritable and awkward in how he tries to connect with others, Boron harbors some personal insecurities despite his simple demeanor, Socks is fixated on science and nervous around girls, Mei's innocence leads her to be occasionally naive or clueless, Chick has a degree of vanity in how she wants to be a "lady", Hack is excitable and mischievous but emotionally sensitive, Sheena has a strong will but is otherwise shy and reserved, Jin is mature but also has a blunt and direct attitude, Wappa is charismatic but goofy and self-centered, Britz takes some things too seriously and may be troubled by his experiences as a Berman soldier, and Vanilla from the second game is resolute to the point of being stubborn and hard-headed. Not even her greater role in the next game was able to win her some fans, to the point that many prefer Vanilla over her and some even wish she would have sacrificed herself in Jihl's place.
  • Is Wappa one of the funniest and most dynamic members of the cast in this game, or is she just an annoying brat that won't shut up? There are fans who find both to be the case. That being said, the Character Development she undergoes between this game and the next has been very well-received, and she's gained more fans as a result.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Rarely during an Intermission, instead of a regular request that will earn points for a character's Hero Mode, they'll instead request "..." and have an enthusiastic face. If that happens, you can unlock a "Secret Garden" scene by... taking them to a duck-shaped potty that only appears for them at the top of the Taranis, which will show their mood changing, followed by a field of flowers. The sequel takes this even further with a golden duck potty that appears even more rarely, teleports elsewhere when approached with the message that it's "scared" and when chased down 3 times and used, you get a much more triumphant fanfare, the resulting character starts the next battle already in Hero Mode (as opposed to being a single action away from reaching it after using the normal potty) that has double the normal duration and that character gets a sparkle symbol at the end of their Secret Garden entry to signify they've used the golden duck potty.
• Broken Base: The game's story, more specifically how it's presented. Is it just as good as previous entries in the franchise, serviceable but not as good as even Tail Concerto, or does the Anyone Can Die nature severely hold back its potential thus making it come across as shallow or ignorable? Keep in mind, a lot of this stems from how attached you are to the main cast, so if you don't find either one of them particularly interesting, chances are, your enjoyment of the story will take a hit.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Any time you're able to kill all enemies on-screen with a Link Attack. Just sit back, relax and watch the Stuff Blowing Up.
  • Doktor Blutwurst, the game's premiere Hate Sink known for subjecting innocent Felineko to torturous and fatal experiments, also doubles as That One Boss for most players, and as such he's the most likely point at where you'll find yourself forced to use the Soul Cannon— and unlike every other boss in the game, he'll look on at it with awe. However, if you keep going and enter a New Game Plus run where you have more experience and better preparation, it's more than likely you'll be able to defeat him by normal means the second time around, in where he'll instead panic about how he's about to die, even being Killed Mid-Sentence to affirm it.
• Common Knowledge:
  • A frequent error about the game, even among its player base, is that it occurs seven hundred years before the time period of Tail Concerto and Solatorobo: Red the Hunter. In reality, it occurs a full one thousand years before before those games proper do. The game however does happen seven hundred years prior to the Golden Ending's epilogue where Baion determines that the Caninu and Felineko are bringing the world to ruin, which occurs several decades after his awakening, and implicitly before he burns Ragdoll to the ground (as shown in the "Ragdoll Elegy" side-novel).
  • A misconception about the overall plot of the game describes the Tarascus as being the heart of the Vanargand itself from when it originally fought the Taranis. This is false, as Hax himself explains that the Vanargand's heart was mined out by the people of Gasco and integrated into the Tarascus as a power source, and Jeanne never even alludes to the Tarascus in any of her reports. The Little Tail Bronx Archives art book instead reveals that the Berman Empire themselves constructed the Tarascus under orders from Shvein Hax, a factoid that is reiterated by the AI Hax at the start of the sequel proper.
• Crack Pairing: Thanks to Yoann's "official love chart" for the cast (no, really), quite a few people have caught on to the idea of the moosheep on the Taranis expressing a vehemently one-sided love for Kyle.
• Crazy Is Cool: Wappa has earned this reputation among some fans due to her unshakable confidence and wacky attitude, with many even joking(?) that she actually is the leader. It's especially thanks to one moment in the manga where she successfully hijacks a Berman tank and thwarts Doktor Blutwurst's attempt at putting the kids through a Sadistic Choice.
• Crosses the Line Twice: A hidden mechanic in the game involves certain characters becoming instantly inflicted with Depression if they have a strong canon relationship with whoever was sacrificed to the Soul Cannon (such as Malt becoming depressed if Mei gets sacrificed due to their sibling relationship and vice-versa). If Hanna is sacrificed, Kyle will get depressed due to his crush towards her... but if Kyle gets sacrificed, Hanna doesn't react at all.
• Demonic Spiders: Hämmerlinge tanks! They are the only enemy with an attack guaranteed to injure the children. They also have three layers of armor and a ton of HP, and god help you if an encounter forces you to face off against two at once. The only saving grace is that they can only use the drill attack once if you can't finish them off first.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Relating to her Ensemble Dark Horse status below, it's not uncommon to see people portray Flam as a Tragic Villain or to give her a High-Heel–Face Turn, given the loving relationship she had with her father Pretzel and how Hax weaponized her grief into a tool to further his own devices. All while ignoring her intense wrath and Moral Myopia.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Despite not contributing much to the plot beyond her role as Merlot's top subordinate, Muscat has been seen as a character of interest throughout the fans for the Ms. Fanservice artwork.
  • Among the Taranis crew, Boron tends to be the most popular with fans due to his adorable appearance, sweet personality, and effective combat stats. See Memetic Badass below.
  • While Boron is widely regarded by the fans as the most endearing, Jin is definitely considered the coolest. He even won the official character popularity contest for the child characters with Boron as runner-up.
  • Likewise, Flam easily won out in the adult characters' popularity poll. Being a semi-sympathetic villain compared to the rest of the Berman may have had something to do with it, but being a tall Fiery Redhead with a baroness-like look is probably what cemented it. For many, she's a more popular Ms. Fanservice than Muscat, and this popularity may have contributed to her being revealed to still be alive (albeit comatose) in the next game.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Parodied in this review for the game, which jokes that the Taranis being a response to Titano-Machina like the Vanargand is representative of the shift between the New and Old Testaments.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "God" for Boron. See Memetic Badass for details.
  • Some people have taken to giving Wappa the nickname "Gremlin Isabelle".
• Game-Breaker:
  • Chick's Risky Grenades falls under this due to its very simple, yet very effective, ability to inflict Bad Luck onto enemy units. Bad Luck raises the chance of which enemy units will suffer from status effects by 30%. If Chick manages to proc Bad Luck and is immediately followed by someone like Socks or Britz, then you can effortlessly stun-lock most enemies in a single encounter as well as bosses. What makes it better is that Chick's Hero Mode lets her continuously use Special Skills without draining SP, meaning you can have her spam Risky Grenades to keep the Bad Luck status in effect while Socks' skills can give the enemies a very bad day with continuous stuns or burns.
  • Kyle's Support Skill lets him raise the accuracy rate of the gunner he's paired with, which raises depending on their link level. While this is basically useless on other Machine Gun users and Grenade Launchers to a point, it's absolutely busted on Cannon users. This is especially true for Malt and Boron, thanks to their skills Fragmented Shot and Megaton Blast, making them deadly screen nukes, and if Boron enters his Hero Mode during that time, then it's basically game-set-and-match. Kyle's Support Skill even lets you negate the Fear side effect of Boron's Overload skill, making him much more tactically viable.
  • Boron is an above average Taranis pilot already, but his Hero Mode takes that to the extreme. With one normal attack, he removes all the clocks off an enemy's healthbar, instantly delaying them, AND removes all their armor. Against enemies with three weaknesses to hit, or high armor (and many enemies in this game are both those categories) this cuts through any intended flow of battle, letting Boron and company tear through fights that they really shouldn't at that pace.
• Genius Bonus: In one episode of Comedies of Steel, Kyle tries to get out of bath cleaning duty by pulling the classic Cats Hate Water card, only for Malt to call him out by stating that he takes the longest baths out of everyone else on the Taranis. Kyle is an Abyssinian cat, and a major characteristic of Abyssinians is that they love to play in water, thus giving the joke an extra layer beyond Kyle's standard City Mouse tendencies.
• Genius Programming: Hiroshi Matsuyama stated on his Twitter account that the way the game loads content has been optimized in such a way as to keep loading screens to a minimum. The devs also managed to fit the entire game's content (gorgeous character portraits, CGs, soundtrack and all) into 1.25 GB, about the same size as the average Nintendo GameCube game.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Thanks to streamer Degrastream, Fuga has a rather impressive cult following in Russia.
  • Likewise, CyberConnect2 stated in early 2023 that more than half of Fuga's sales (which at the time of writing was over 100,000 downloads) came from North American territories.
• Goddamned Boss: The boss battle against Doktor Blutwurst would be infuriating enough with just his constant use of gas attacks inducing fear and depression on your party, but his most infamous trick is a massive laser cannon that takes three turns to charge... Most of the time. Sometimes he begins charging, the countdown goes firing in 3 turns, firing in 2 turns, firing in 1 turn... No, now! Without the Defend buff up, this can easily take out 2/3rds of the Taranis' HP, possibly more if the armor hasn't been upgraded a lot. If that doesn't cut it for you, how about the fact that he can summon two reinforcements in the same turn... and then heal 4000HP by destroying one of the two reinforcements? For some, the entire boss fight turns into a battle of endurance because he can heal himself, summon reinforcements that can also inflict Fear and Depression (even starting the battle with two of them), and packs a deadly attack in his arsenal, causing you to abuse your stockpile of Energy and Repair kits more than you'd want to.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • While jokes about using captured Berman soldiers to use as Soul Cannon fuel does enter Crosses the Line Twice territory, the sequel instantly josses this since it wouldn't even have worked to begin with. The Taranis and its Soul Cannon were intentionally designed with children in mind, so no matter what, the crew are heavily restricted with who can enter the chamber to fire the weapon.
  • In the Golden Ending, Jeanne discovers the Taranis' power which allows the Soul Cannon to be fired without needing to sacrifice anyone. The sequel heavily implies that she unwittingly tapped in Jihl's lifeforce, as he was sealed in said tank to begin with. To make matters worse, Jeanne is the AI that was based on the very scientist that sacrificed herself to prevent Jihl from being used as ammo in the first place.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In Comedies of Steel (and to a lesser extent the game's Link Events), Malt makes it a habit to flaunt his status as the oldest to cement himself as the makeshift leader of the crew, at one point suffering from a Catapult Nightmare where he dreamt he was the youngest of the children. His voice actor, Ayumu Murase, would later voice Tsubasa Yuunagi/Cure Wing in Hirogaru Sky! Pretty Cure, who is not only the same age as Malt, but is also The Baby of the Bunch and not the leader of the team (since the rest of the team is 14-18 years old), basically living out Malt's worst Absurd Phobia.
• Ho Yay: A couple examples from Comedies of Steel, both featuring Jin.
  • Socks uses Puppy-Dog Eyes to get Jin to let him borrow his tools— as in, Jin's "closest friends"— and it works. What makes it this trope, however, is that Jin isn't just distracted by Socks' expression, but that he's left nervously sweating and wondering if Socks' eyes overwhelmed him with a "mysterious power".
    Jin: I can't stand those eyes… when he looks at me like that, I totally freeze…
  • A later skit has Jin accidentally receiving a bouquet of flowers addressed from Kyle (that Malt intended to pass on to Hanna), which leaves him a flustered, shuddering mess when he visits Kyle to politely decline them, while carrying a love letter with Kyle's name written on it.
• I Knew It!: From the moment Socks was revealed, the well-versed Little Tail Bronx fans were immediately able to tie the connection between him, Merveille, and Red just from his last name alone. Sure enough, Yoann confirmed it in a tweet not long after the game's launch, and told fans to max out Malt and Socks' friendship to see the reasoning unfold.
• Inferred Holocaust: Who knows how many people died in Vanargand's awakening and rampage? Given the sheer disparity in land mass between Gasco◊ and the Shepherd Republic◊, there is no way it can be a low number.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The general consensus towards the manga adaptation. While it's not bad by any means, people are disappointed that the manga didn't bother expanding upon characters and dynamics introduced in the game proper in favor for a Shot-for-Shot Remake of the main story. Even when the intermission chapter introduced a new character, it ultimately proved to be a Red Herring as the manga went on retelling the same storyline fans are already familiar with.
• Love to Hate:
  • Shvein Hax is the megalomaniac responsible for ruining the kids' home and is very much designed to be the Caninu equivalent of Adolf Hitler, but between his ambitious drive, imposing appearance and sheer charisma most of the time, it's no shocker that he's won over quite a few fans.
  • As callous and sadistic as Doktor Blutwurst is, you'd be surprised to see how many players find his chubby design endearing and his over-the-top mannerisms entertaining.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Boron has been referred to by many as "God", due to his early use of AoE attacks, his Hero Mode allowing him to instantly pierce through every layer of enemy armor, along side an overly-friendly appearance as well as Comedies of Steel having a scene that makes it look like he has ascended. According to the game's director, all of this was intentional.
  • To a much lesser degree, Hanna briefly gained this treatment due to how Comedies of Steel presented her as the Almighty Mom who has mastered the art of the slap.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Get in the Soul Cannon, Shinji! It's the only way to defeat the Angels!"
  • Be honest: if you're interested in this game, you yourself have probably made jokes about which of the kids you'd like to sacrifice. As for specific trends:
    • Many have joked about sacrificing Boron to the Soul Cannon, using the logic that his fat will deal even more damage to the Berman tanks. It got to the point where Yoann himself started calling on people to stop sacrificing him.
    • And even before the game came out, those who didn't joke about powering the Soul Cannon with Boron's bio-energy instead joked about using Mei's instead, for no reason besides even crazier Black Comedy. On the other hand, at least one person has proposed doing the opposite: killing everyone except Mei to leave her to suffer in loneliness. We'll let you form your own opinions on which one of these is worse.
    • Both the above memes became even more egregious when CyberConnect2 announced the most common sacrifices to the Soul Cannon during their first anniversary stream on the game: Boron for Japanese players, and Mei for North American players.
  • On the flip side, veteran fans have joked about keeping Socks alive, and by extension, him being the only character to get laid, as he's the canonical ancestor to Merveille and Red.
  • "I'm the oldest!"^Explanation People were quick to catch on to how often Malt would say this, treating it as his Catchphrase and go-to response for whenever anything happens. It's not helped that Comedies of Steel exaggerated this trait for laughs.
  • Mr. Matsuyama's fetish^Explanation When Yoko Taro was brought on to play Fuga, he spent a good chunk of the beginning implying that the reason why they went with children as the main characters was so Hiroshi Matsuyama could satisfy his furry lolicon fetish.
  • afuga^Explanation A weird way of saying Fuga whenever major news about the game gets announced, be it new episodes for Comedies of Steel, manga chapters, or full game updates.
  • "MELT… THAT… CHILD!"^Explanation A joke that originated from one of Sean Chiplock's Iron Man runs, in which he plays up the use of the Soul Cannon like a game show. Unsurprisingly, the results are hysterical.
  • The ASS ranking^Explanation Another running gag from Sean Chiplock's streams of the game, where the post-battle Gameplay Grading reads "ASS" for getting an A in turns taken, an S in damage taken, and an S in use of techniques.
• Memetic Psychopath: The main characters of the game are Reluctant Children Forced to Kill waves of Berman soldiers and generals in a war-torn world to rescue their friends and family after they've all been kidnapped. The fans would want you to believe that they are all Blood Knights that would not hesitate to kill anyone and everything any chance they get. Naturally, CyberConnect2 took notice of this, and ran with it in regards to Jin in one Comedies of Steel short.
• Moe: All the kids have elements of this— which gives you all the more reason to avoid ever using the Soul Cannon— but as for some specific examples:
  • Boron is an easygoing Gentle Giant who couldn't be aggressive if his life depended on it, and he's often seen eating with "nyom nyom nyom" noises throughout the Taranis.
  • Mei. She's an energetic little puppy who wants to be friends with everyone, and she thinks the Taranis got big by eating. Add in her soft appearance and big round eyes, and it's near-impossible to not want to hug her.
  • Sheena's an extremely shy, sweet and polite girl.
  • Even the rather macho Jin comes off as cute when you notice his design has fluffy fur and stubby little legs.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • If Flam Kish somehow didn't cross this by executing Jin's father, she certainly does when she coldly remarks to the boy that his father's pedigree was worthless compared to that of a Berman's. This is enough to motivate the other kids to fight her on the spot. It's for this exact reason that many were openly opposed to her being Not Quite Dead in Fuga 2, even more when it was revealed that Jin has been nursing her back to health, as even if he realized that Vengeance Feels Empty in this game, he would still have no reason to save the one responsible for killing and reducing his father to being lower than dirt.
  • Doktor Blutwurst easily crossed this line by very gleefully using the captured Felineko as test subjects for his experiments— Sheena's mother and older sister among them— and draining them of their life energy to power bio-batteries, with it being explicitly stated that some of them died in the process.
  • General Hax already proved his irredeemability through being the one to lead the invasion of Gasco and commission Blutwurst's cruel experiments in the first place, but from a more personal standpoint, he manipulates Britz into rejoining the Berman Army through bluffing that they have his mother and sister captive.
• Narm:
  • Defeating Colonel Pretzel without using the Soul Cannon will grant you a cutscene where Hanna, Kyle and Malt all realize in shock and horror that the kids collectively just killed someone… and then the results screen with its jaunty theme plays for the first time, as the kids get gifted with EXP and other goodies. Quite a few players have admitted to finding the sheer Mood Whiplash of this moment hilarious (which is probably why Malt repeats his last line after the results screen to preserve the drama the scene was aiming for).
  • The dialogue for the kids can come off as repetitive during some story events, given that each one of them needs to have their own lines for these situations and can't directly reference each other due to the Soul Cannon mechanic. Following Blutwurst's boss fight, for example, you might run into the kids stating three times in a row that they're finally able to "free the prisoners".
  • To a much lesser degree, it can be hard to take the game as seriously when you have characters with names like Pretzel and Socks, but the characters at least take the plot seriously enough that some players don't care.
  • Quite a few plot beats become less coherent depending on how many of the kids you sacrifice to the Soul Cannon in one playthrough:
    • If you sacrifice all of the children throughout your playthrough, by the time you reach the part of the story where they reunite with their families, you'll only have one of the kids left (since Britz will have already left the party at this point), but the narration still describes them as "children" in a plural sense, and will continue to do so until the end of the game.
    • If during the Final Boss battle you only have one child left and sacrifice them to defeat Hax and the Cor Tarascus, the game gives a message that "all children have been knocked out" with a regular Game Over happening as a result. No case of a Non-Standard Game Over with a message like "all kids have been sacrificed" or anything, let alone an It's a Wonderful Failure scenario.
    • Likewise, if following the Final Boss battle you have only one child left to sacrifice to the Soul Cannon and finish off Hax, the child's last words will still be the same as in the "normal" ending— meaning that Jin or Britz especially will act as if the other kids are still there.
• Narm Charm: The French voice track. It's done by the exact same Japanese cast and has a noticeable degree of Chewing the Scenery to it (Jin's voice is even deeper, for instance), but given the game's France-like setting and the fact that the actors' word pronunciation is almost completely accurate to native French, it's no wonder that many players prefer it over the original Japanese.
• Popular with Furries: Unsurprisingly, the game and its characters managed to catch on quite well with the furry and kemono fandoms. The fact that several well known kemono artists contributed the game's chapter end cards helps in this regard.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Success of activities like cooking, upgrading and scrap-fishing during Intermissions are dependent on chance, with the base value lowering the more you progress while being able to be boosted by instances of 5% by your friends at random. However, not only is it possible to fail at a 95% success rate, the materials are consumed regardless of success or failure. The only times your game saves are before and after the Intermissions, so don't even think about Save Scumming unless you are willing to redo your chores. Later updates made this mechanic less annoying by offsetting some values and making successes happen more frequently, but it's telling that the second game completely overhauled this mechanic into one that succeeds automatically.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: Several challenges have rose in the community:
  • The first is the Soul Cannon% run, where you have to go through the game sacrificing every child one by one using the Soul Cannon. It is doable, but the reduced numbers results in harder fights as you have less skills and chances to attack the enemy. You also have to be mindful to keep at least 2 kids alive by the final boss, as the Soul Cannon is required to kill it once and for all in the post-fight cutscene.
  • The second, popularized by Sean Chiplock, is a Final Death Mode run, where you reset your save upon getting a game over.^note However the tutorial enforced death does not count towards the reset criteria, otherwise you'd be stuck at the start of the game in an infinite loop..
  • The simplest challenge, however, would be the Iron Man run, where you are only allowed to take the hardest route available at a junction, and the run is forfeit the moment you choose an easier route at a junction.
  • One person managed to beat the entire game and get the Golden Ending without using skills or items.
• Sequel Displacement: And for good reason. Tail Concerto and Solatorobo: Red the Hunter were restricted to only one system each, had pitiful sales and were horrendously undermarketed, not helped by physical copies becoming harder and more expensive to find with each passing year. Fuga, despite still running into the same marketing issues as prior games, is available on every major system, and being on digital storefronts means the game is far more accessible to buy and play. Especially due to its nature as a prequel, Fuga can also be played standalone without any prior knowledge of the Little Tail Bronx series, preventing Continuity Lock-Out.
• Signature Scene: The Soul Cannon's But Thou Must! usage in the tutorial, doubling as an emotional gut-punch to many, many players who found it to be especially dark and depressing. The subsequent aftermath is also very memorable due to hammering in the kind of situation the children are in and what the players are in for.
• Spiritual Successor: In some ways, Fuga takes some cues from Metal Slug, primarily with being a game that's in 2D perspective, and the primary vehicle is a tank, while the main enemy are a huge army of enemy soldiers who feel like a furry version of the Nazis.
• Tainted by the Preview: The excuse many used when justifying that they're pirating the game instead of buying it? The revealed US$39.95 price tag^note The game has regional pricing, but the general price is around US$39.95 to US$60 in most first world regions. In second- and third- world areas like part of South America outside Brazil, Asia, Africa and Russia, the game can go for as low as US$15 and lack of physical release^note CyberConnect2 has constantly hammered in the fact that they couldn't afford to make physical copies of the game, and it's highly unlikely they ever will. Yeah, major facepalm right there.
• That One Achievement: Currently, aside from the 100% Achievement (which doesn't require the potty scenes, every single upgrade, or every single Link Event to get), the rarest achievement for the game is having every character reach Level 50. Given that one character reaching that level is near-impossible in a single run, as there's limited opportunities to earn experience, having the entire party reach that point will take multiple full runs of the game, arguably at least three. It's especially challenging for Britz, as he's the last to join the party and can permanently leave it if requirements aren't met.
• That One Boss: Doktor Blutwurst is one boss you may have trouble fighting against even with upgrades from previous playthroughs, and that's because he can summon mooks that can inflict Fear and Depressed debuffs on the kids and even starts with a pair of said mooks. While Fear can be remedied with Hanna's Soothing Song skill, there aren't any skills that can cure Depression mid-fight and you may be in further trouble if Hanna gets depressed if you've been relying on her for recovery since she can't use skills while Depressed. Even if you take out Blutwurst's mooks you can't relax, because not only can he just summon more of them, he has a charge-up attack that inflicts not only heavy damage on the Taranis, but inflicts both Fear and Depression on any of the kids you got in the fight. That, and he can heal himself by a significant amount of HP by sacrificing one mook.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • While few will call the kids completely bland or generic, a not-too-uncommon sentiment about them is that they aren't fleshed out compared to the cast of Solatorobo: Red the Hunter in particular, making them come off as less memorable or developed as a whole. That said, as evidenced by how many players with this view still feel that Britz has the most complete arc due to him being excluded from being used as Soul Cannon ammo until the final chapter which allows more personal scenes involving him being written, it's partially a side-effect of the game's anyone-can-die-at-any-time nature rendering any meaningful story scenes planned on the cutting room floor, since all it takes to make it nonsensical is for one of the characters involved to be used as Soul Cannon ammo beforehand, as well as how different Link Events happen independently to each other and to the game's main plotline. In short, Fuga is akin to Fire Emblem in that it's a game where an ensemble cast is needed due to the game having permadeath mechanics, but that comes with the risk of not having as much time to develop each character as an individual.
  • Some players feel that Colonel Pretzel was underused as a character since he's the game's starter boss and is killed by the end of the first chapter. He seemed to have a more interesting characterization since he is shown to be the only Berman boss who questions his country's tactics and was reluctant to fight children, making him a more sympathetic villain compared to Hax, Blutwurst, Von Stollen, and Von Baum who are all portrayed as being insane and sadistic villains with with no redeeming qualities.
  • While the underlying implication of the foil dynamic between Jin and Flam Kish may be that Jin gives up on revenge thanks to the other kids giving him a support network, some still feel that this dynamic and Flam's character in general weren't given enough time to be fully established. One Berman Report does imply that Flam feels conflicted about her situation and what she needs to do following her father's death at the hands of the Taranis, but in-game she's never really portrayed as much more than a misanthrope towards the children, making her Alas, Poor Villain death come off as a less fulfilling climax to her arc.
• Toy Ship:
  • While Malt's portrayed in Comedies of Steel as being a very bombastic Shipper on Deck for Kyle and Hanna, some still choose to pair him up with Hanna directly. This may be due to how Malt and Hanna are shown in-game to be more mutually open and honest with one another, whereas Kyle's Puppy Love towards Hanna seems to mostly be one-sided.
  • Sheena and Britz are shown to be close and are given a fair amount of teasing anyways, so it didn't take long for people to pair them up as a Toy Rescue Romance of sorts. Some instead choose to pair up Britz with Jin, given that they get over their issues together, find common ground, and develop a sort of Vitriolic Best Buds relationship in their final link event.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Baion's appearance was a reveal that took many by surprise, since while the game made plenty of Call-Forwards to Solatorobo, there was no reference or foreshadow to signify that he would be in the game at all (especially with legal issues getting in the way of them making any true references to pre-existing Little Tail Bronx characters by name). And then he shocked everyone again by being the focus of Comedies of Steel's final episode.
  • In the manga, a character that seems to be Carmine from "Red Data Children" makes an appearance in silhouette during one of the intermission chapters, surprising everyone because— like Baion— fans assumed he would also be stuck in legal hell due to him being directly connected to Solatorobo's story.
• Values Dissonance: Japanese-made video games having swimsuits as alternate costumes is nothing new, but the problem becomes that the cast of characters in Fuga are all children.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: The game has the initial appearance of a Funny Animal cartoon with kid protagonists fighting to rescue their families. Beneath the surface, however, is a story about how War Is Hell for these unwitting Child Soldiers fighting against an army of WWII-era Germany-inspired soldiers, as well as a Desperation Attack mechanic that lets you clinch victory from the jaws of defeat, but only if you're willing to choose one of your kid protagonists to DIE to power the weapon in question. It does not help that it's a Distant Prequel to the lighthearted, E-rated Tail Concerto.

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Kaze wa utai nagareru^note The wind sings and flows
Kiyorana tamashī hakonde^note As it carries a pure soul
(Rin-sayara, rinaru-sa) Itsuka no sōgen no^note On the meadows of yore
Midori to sono kaori^note Is the scent of green
(Rin-sayara, rinaru-sa) Sora wa kawarazu ni^note The sky remains the same as it was
Tōku takaku sumiwataru^note Far and high and clear